I have been coaching for 20 years, and specifically involved with powerlifting for 10 of those. Over those years the sport/hobby of powerlifting has lost its way. My first ever exposure to powerlifting was at Total Performance Sports when it was in Everett. There were large tatted dudes squatting in a mono lift wearing potato sacks and blasting heavy music. They forced me to join the rotation and coached me up every time it was Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann I started to write this as a post, but I have more to say than that space will allow. As a young boy, like most young boys, I loved The Jungle Book. Akela, the wolf was my favorite character, not sure why, but he was. He was the leader of the wolves. Shere khan killed him in a fight while he was protecting Mowgli, who was a young boy at the time. After writing that Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann Training is first and foremost a physics problem. Understanding concepts such as force, potential energy, kinetic energy, velocity, acceleration, and work are critical to the coach being able to write effective programs, but also to be able to utilize the various tools at his or her disposal more effectively. Understanding how biomechanical structure has an impact on recovery is important. A lifter with a longer ROM on deadlifts, will be doing more work, Read More
Written by: Kevin Cann At 32 years old I got into the sport of powerlifting. I had played soccer through college and trained in mixed martial arts for another 10 years after college. That was a total of 26 years of athletic experience before I started lifting. Starting this late makes it more difficult to gain strength when compared with a late teenager or if I was in my early twenties. This does need to be taken into account. Read More
If you watch major professional sports, you can see the philosophy of the team, or should be able to, every time that you watch them. I am a big soccer fan and a fan of the Tottenham Hotspurs. I know when they play that will play a high line and be very forward and aggressive in their offensive attacks. The philosophy is a total commitment to attacking soccer and the high line is one of those principles. Falling back Read More
A paper titled this was published in the “Sport Psychologist” journal and it looked at the developmental program that produced 6 professional soccer players out of the 40 participants. More striking was the 35 out of 40 that carried on participating in sport into adulthood. One of these professionals is Erling Haaland, one of the world’s best. Sports can be broken down into the three P’s; performance, participation, and physical activity. Too many programs and coaches only seem Read More
I used to be the coach that tried to convince people to do hard and uncomfortable things. I would motivate enough to get people moving towards that goal and I always have led by example. However, most people do not last long enough in the sport of powerlifting to get anything out of hard and uncomfortable. This has been something that I have been reflecting upon quite a bit and putting into perspective in my own life. I Read More
Online coaching is still a relatively new concept. It has many positive features to it. I would have never been able to work with the legendary Boris Sheiko if it wasn’t for online coaching. However, the low barrier to entry has led to a market over saturation of online coaches that have no formal education in the field and very limited experience competing. In order for online coaches to try to make a career out of it, they Read More
My first meet was in a recreation basketball court. There were lifters from all over because there were not as many meets bacon 2015 as there are now. There were raw lifters, raw with wraps, and equipped lifters. Some all-time top 10 lifters were there lifting including Greg Panora. There wasn’t anyone filming warmups, and online coaches were not at meets in droves yet. There was a hot dog guy though. Lifters were helping their training partners and everyone was Read More
I was reading a book about strength and conditioning in English soccer and came across an interesting passage. These strength and conditioning coaches are sports scientists and they identified that the Brazilians were stronger on the ball than the English players, even though they are the same build. Upon further investigation, the sports scientists learned that the Brazilians played a lot of soccer on uneven surfaces growing up. They then invested in these giant sand fields, costing Read More