Aaron King (00:02):
Welcome back to the modern old school training podcast. I'm Aaron King with coach Bob King and today's topic. We are talking about what programs you'd use or how do you choose a program that's right. For your situation, your goals, and kind of just the combination of those things. What are your I don't resources and all the above
Coach Bob King (00:19):
When picking a program is very important and very tricky today because obviously there are so many out there everybody's got is willing to help guide you and give you programs to do. They don't fit everybody. They're not one size fits all at all. And so we have to start with a few basic questions. How old are you maybe your gender, but not necessarily and your sport and the time of year? So there's a whole list of things that we do in athletic development, athletic sports training that matter in your program choice that also comes into people like to call it specificity of training, sports specific, that kind of thing. What I want to mention is sports specific so often is about what you don't do. And so a lot of times it's like, should I do this? Should I do that? Well, let's give example, the rotator cuff, everybody needs to do. It's just a weak link in a chain power cleans. Not everybody should do it. It's very coaching intensive, very technical, very beneficial, very useful, but I don't have golfers and most tennis players doing power cleans, for example, because I don't know how that type of stressor is going to be beneficial to them when they've got so many other things they need to do.
Aaron King (01:29):
And that was always some problem that we had back in when I was playing because I was a long snapper. So it's similar to like a pitcher in baseball where the cleans, just blow your elbows up. Yeah.
Coach Bob King (01:40):
They're high stress. They're a great exercise. Don't miss it. I don't want people to go well, he's anti-Olympics, not at all. I've done them myself for decades. I have my athletes still do them currently, but it depends on who you are and what your goals are. And as you said, it's not, it's kinda my Bob science is that you are stressing yourself significantly with certain exercises. And so you're putting a lot of stress on joints, tendons, muscles, themselves. How much stress does your sport put on that same joint? Well, we're just pal piling it on stress as a cumulative figure
Aaron King (02:14):
What so if I say, Hey, I, you know, I think that Olympic lifts are the best, and I don't want to focus on Olympic lifts too much, but there's maybe a good little rabbit hole to go down. If, if you're thinking about program design and which, which, you know, program to choose the pros and cons of the Olympics of saying, Hey, they might be one of the best, if not the best exercise for certain types of explosive, you know, movements or speed. But is the juice worth the squeeze as far as well? Yeah, but your elbows are gonna kind of what
Coach Bob King (02:42):
You say, elbows, and we just keep going, you know, the shoulders are really loaded up at the same time. And you know, we do some things that we call precursors or you know, kind of a mini-movement. So it's not really part of our Olympics, but we do a pool press combo with a bar, you know, get some kids and just do a pool press combo. And what that does is it allows us to do two things. Multi-Joint multi-movement exercise, but at the same time, we can kind of look and see, boy, we get, we start putting weight on the bar. They just have their limb length or their coordination, maybe sometime down the line, but not right at the moment. It kind of gives us a peek at what they may or may not be able to do from an Olympic standpoint.
Aaron King (03:24):
And how does this break down by age?
Coach Bob King (03:27):
Well, you know, there are those that will go back and say, look, you know, PVC pipe and a twelve-year-old they go together. Okay. I don't disagree. It's coaching intensive as well because you can be really sloppy with air. And that's about what a PVC pipe is, right? And so if you are not careful, light is not necessarily right, because you have to go real slow and there's not a slowness to Olympic movements, slow will get you hurt and miss the lift. So the right age is probably in my opinion, closer to try and teach them in there, you know, post-puberty a little bit 13 to 15 in there, depending on the kid, because you can put some weight on the bar because they are growing more rapidly and developing more physically. And because they have an ability to adapt quicker, I believe.
Aaron King (04:18):
Okay. Yeah. So that, that doesn't just mean going to Olympics, but when you, when we think about everything else that goes into choosing the right program, what, what, or if I'm coming in saying that I have you know, a son that's playing middle school football, I have a daughter that's playing, you know, she's, she's JV soccer or something. And then, Hey, I'm, you know, I used to play myself and kind of be a weekend warrior. What are all these different? Like, what are the kind of, what's that entry questionnaire that's going through each thing?
Coach Bob King (04:50):
Well, let's start at the end and work back for the easy one. That guy needs to be on a general fitness program, a strength program that just serves him well, as far as the total body not too restrictive on like you know, curls and things where they guys like to lift, do curls, which might not be helpful for volleyball so much. So we're going to give him a general program and you can work two to three days a week and be, be benefited by doing that and, and guide you into some fitness type of training. Cause you're not going to be doing speed training the kids, however, the younger they are, we want them to be globally strong. So they are almost on Dad's program except that we're going to you know, limit certain lifts and highlight other lifts.
Coach Bob King (05:34):
So for example you know, with a lot of the overhead people, overhead sports, tennis, baseball even some you know even, I won't say softball because they are throwing a lot if they're not the pitcher. So we're going to just get their, their backs stronger, the scapular region with you know, the rhomboids and the, and the rotator cuff on the backside. We're going to develop those a lot more because they're going so much forward. We have to have some sort of stability in the back deck, you know, answer that forward motion. We, we try to divide it into thirds. So one third is legs. We don't put a lot of restrictions on that. Cause just be strong. That'll make you faster, more powerful, more useful in your sport, upper body. We cap it according to the sport.
Coach Bob King (06:23):
So like the bench press we got sports, you know, we want you to be a big, strong, bad guy. So we want that strength in the bench press. On the other hand in the upper body, we're going to limit it with those overhead sports. Like I talked about, cause too much bulk, we don't want to restrict them. It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be restricted, but we don't want to. And then the third thing is just the supplementary things where you talk about core rotator to stuff, scapular, stability, those kinds of things. And then we get into all the conditioning and stuff later.
Aaron King (06:55):
All right. So breaking it down by season two. All right. So what are the questions that you're getting right now? It's kind of a transition. It is springtime. So people are kind of con they're, they're thinking about summer, but we're not there yet. Right?
Coach Bob King (07:11):
Well, what do you, what happens on almost every season? It's, it's the end of the season like you said, and we won the championship. I'm excited. I want to start over and win another one. We got drill this year. I want, I'm excited. I want to start over fix that right. The ship. So they are all coming from different areas with the same questions and motivation and what can I do to get better? So what we'll try to do is there's a, if they've been training, there is a short start over, see start overtime. So re-entry, we'll call it. And so we're going to get them back on a general program and get the weight soreness out of their system. If they have to have that, because they might not have lifted at the end of the season like they were in the beginning or during the middle of the season.
Coach Bob King (07:53):
So we'll start with a reentry program, a couple of weeks of generic training. And then we'll start trying to if you won't call it specialized so that like football and other ballistic sports will get their bench press routine cycled upward. If they're in some of the other, let's call it volleyball, basketball type of programs would get their jumping going. Cause they're really excited about trying to improve their vertical. So we'll just start ramping it up. And drip speed into it a little bit. Now we're talking a lot about strength, but with athletes always understand your speed and strength and conditioning have to be built into it because you don't want to get too far away from the conditioning you had, strength should make you faster, but you've got to run to see if that will carry over.
Aaron King (08:38):
Okay. So we've got the transition phase going. Now. What about the co the athletes that are, you know, they have maybe a strength coach or company for speed or they're coming, they're getting ready to start schools offseason program. Where's that? I like to call it version control.
Coach Bob King (08:57):
Yes. And that's, we, we figured that out a few years or several years back, cause we've been doing this a long time. And, and what we do is fill in the blanks because what we discovered and moaned be careful not to step on toes. Some strength coaches, especially in those high school, middle schools, they can only, they're only able to do what they are fed. So if they go to the clinic, they bring the clinic notes back and they do that. If the so-and-so wins a national championship, that's a program they do. So there are gaps in the program. And there are things that I do that I'm very confident that programs in schools and even other gyms are not doing. So I get a good, a good thumbnail to say, what, what are you doing in school? And I've got them right now.
Coach Bob King (09:39):
I have tennis and basketball and volleyball coming in right now. And so what are y'all doing in school? Okay, well here, we're going to do this. And it, it, lot of times, especially for me, it's a lot of speed work in terms of technical and just speed development and correcting things. And then on the weights, I will simply go around away from what I can usually predict their school is going to be doing squats and cleans and bench press. And I want to work that backside more because they just, you just don't see it in the programs where they're working in the lats. And for guys, your lats are the largest muscle in your upper body. That's where put on weight, you're going to put it.
Aaron King (10:16):
I've been following a lot of different hashtags and things on Instagram, just to kind of get an idea of what people are doing, because they don't know who to follow necessarily. But if you follow certain hashtags, you're able to see a collection of folks. Right. There's some crazy stuff out there. I mean,
Coach Bob King (10:31):
I see it every day where I'm at, I saw it this morning and it doesn't matter what day we're talking this morning. I saw it's like, what in the wide wide rule of sports is he doing?
Aaron King (10:40):
Yeah. And I don't, I don't know who knows, how do you identify? Cause you, you get someone that is really good at creating content. They're charismatic. And they're putting out stuff that might just, I just don't understand where it fits not to say that every, you know, every coach likes to think that they got to figure it out. You know, I'm not trying to say we have totally for, I don't, I definitely don't have anything figured out, but you know, you see some stuff and you're kinda like, that's kind of a red flag. I kind of know what that's supposed to do. Is there, I mean, what do you, if you're an athlete, I mean, it's just one of those kinds of like, we'll see how it goes.
Coach Bob King (11:11):
I think I have kind of got my finger on it. I don't, I'm not going to swear answer, but I think I've got my finger on this. There is stuff going on out there that I'm realizing that it's catching on because there's the next generation of guys like me who have been around for 45 years and they are seeing things for the first time. So it's like, wow, this is good stuff. Well, they don't have the history and the background to know that here's where all this came from. And so it's like you know, if you have whatever you're having for dinner, you might put salt and pepper on yours and I'm not put paprika on mine, but it's a diff it's the same thing, different flavor. Now you might not like paprika, but you know, that kind of thing, but it still has to be very careful because what am I getting for this? And I've discovered this. And like, you're talking about a survey of one here is that I've done as many of these new things as I can to see what's the benefit. And it's like this bores me, or it's just, it's not dynamic enough. Or it's, you know, there are things that I do that I just liked better.
Aaron King (12:17):
I'll give him credit. Cause I, you know, I'm, I'm not easily bored in the weight room. I just want results when I cook, I'm just, I need the nutrients and yeah, like I love eating good food, but I'm not going to cook it. And so when it comes to working out, I just want to know what I'm doing, what's going to work. So, you know, kudos to those trying new things. Cause I guess some folks want to mix it up. I don't really care personally. I just want to know my numbers are going in the right direction. What, I guess we don't really have much more time. Then, the last kind of thing I thought was was unique is when you have to say like a, one of the guys you have right now projected, you know, we don't know if we need to name names, but guys that projected potential lottery picks in the NBA. And then some guys that might train for the NFL, it's like, okay, they're in the gym. And then there are other folks in the gym observing, what about them saying, I want to go on that program,
Coach Bob King (13:09):
You know, go back to what we just talked about because the player you're talking about, it's we're getting ready for the draft in June and he is out of town. And so he texts me. He says, Hey, can you send me a copy of the workouts? And so you'll take a picture and fire it off to him. And the cool thing about it is it's caught on its travels. It goes anywhere very well. And so some of the exotic stuff that you see going on requires, I mean, a kettlebell is not a specialized piece of equipment, but you need a kettlebell. You know, I have lap pull in mind, so obviously you need a lap pool, but most facilities you go to, the programs I use are, are, are able to be executed in the way we do our system, a system of training.
Coach Bob King (13:50):
It's very dynamic, you know, about our lift and move. We don't sit in one spot. You will not see us in one spot more than 15, 20 seconds top, and we're on the go. And so you know, I think people recognize that I'm working with highly gifted individuals. And so once in a while, I will get that Hey, what are you charged for a program like that? And, you know, we have it on a semi-personal and personal level. So we're able to disseminate and get the programs out if people want to do that.
Aaron King (14:19):
Yeah. I think that's the funny thing is the whole train, like a pro. So it's like, like you and him or her can do the,
Coach Bob King (14:27):
How many times have you seen that in ads and stuff? Train like the pros, no,
Aaron King (14:32):
Some guys might be on that program. They don't even
Coach Bob King (14:34):
Realize it. Right, right.
Aaron King (14:36):
I mean he's seven feet tall, so okay. Well, yeah, that's good. I think that you know, we're already at 15 minutes and so we have a lot of topics to go over as usual. So if you have any questions that are the just follow @CoachBobKing
Aaron King (14:52):
On Twitter and Instagram. And you can actually get a little sneak peek inside the gym, Instagram stories and everything. Do you have any questions? Hit him up on Twitter? You can hit me up on @DeepSnap on Instagram and Twitter as well. And we will try to do what we can to get into these questions right here. I also on the anchor app, I have my other podcasts where it's more, well, we're going to do an episode after this where it's more sports talk. Just kind of talk about whatever, obviously here at modern old school training on this podcast, please try to talk about what you can be doing from a performance standpoint. But if you have any questions, let us know until next time I'm Aaron King.
