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Post by kylem56 on Dec 29, 2019 21:14:04 GMT -6
Coaches For those of you familiar with "sprint based practice planning", what are your experiences with it? Good? Bad? I learned about it from watching a presentation on www.chiefpigskin.com from Brad Dixon at Camp Point Central HS in Illinois and I have been gathering notes on it from presentations and the track-field consortium website and reaching out to other coaches. I have probaly close to 80 pages of notes on it but I am really looking to hear from those who use it. For those not familiar with it, its premise is based on shorter practices, "sprint days", warming up with speed training based exercisesand eliminating static stretches, practicing fast, with adequate opportunities for rest. Much of its theory grounded in track/sprinters training. At first I was very skeptical and chalked it up to a "when you have talent, it doesn't matter how you do it" kind of theory but the more I have researched, seen film of teams, talked to coaches, and verified their science with guys I trust, I can see its merits but have many questions still. Many of the ideas are unconventional but its hard to argue with the success that some of these coaches are having. It seems alot of the HS football coaches utilizing this are based in Illinois.. One article that briefly discusses this method: trackfootballconsortium.com/the-cross-country-football-connection/As a head coach at a small school program, it is intriguing to me but I still want to learn more. I plan on going to the RPR Level 1 certification on January 25 in Columbus which RPR (and yes I have read the threads and the various viewpoints on it) is a small component of this practice planning method but I am really looking for those who practice with these methods and practice planning "outside the box". |
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Post by morris on Dec 29, 2019 21:20:05 GMT -6
Did you see the recent article that was something like “Learn How to Cook”?
I’ve been very interested in this approach. We’ve started to use some of this approach but like the article I mentioned I’m still learning how to cook.
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Post by larrymoe on Dec 29, 2019 21:24:04 GMT -6
One thing I will note is Camp Point was equally as successful prior to the track football stuff.
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Post by coachd5085 on Dec 29, 2019 21:29:17 GMT -6
Coaches For those of you familiar with "sprint based practice planning", what are your experiences with it? Good? Bad? I learned about it from watching a presentation on www.chiefpigskin.com from Brad Dixon at Camp Point Central HS in Illinois and I have been gathering notes on it from presentations and the track-field consortium website and reaching out to other coaches. I have probaly close to 80 pages of notes on it but I am really looking to hear from those who use it. For those not familiar with it, its premise is based on shorter practices, "sprint days", warming up with speed training based exercisesand eliminating static stretches, practicing fast, with adequate opportunities for rest. Much of its theory grounded in track/sprinters training. At first I was very skeptical and chalked it up to a "when you have talent, it doesn't matter how you do it" kind of theory but the more I have researched, seen film of teams, talked to coaches, and verified their science with guys I trust, I can see its merits but have many questions still. Many of the ideas are unconventional but its hard to argue with the success that some of these coaches are having. It seems alot of the HS football coaches utilizing this are based in Illinois.. One article that briefly discusses this method: trackfootballconsortium.com/the-cross-country-football-connection/As a head coach at a small school program, it is intriguing to me but I still want to learn more. I plan on going to the RPR Level 1 certification on January 25 in Columbus which RPR (and yes I have read the threads and the various viewpoints on it) is a small component of this practice planning method but I am really looking for those who practice with these methods and practice planning "outside the box". I think it is generally accepted that static stretches as a prep for an activity are unnecessary (and some may say detrimental). As far as the rest, how would that idea be incorporated with actual FOOTBALL practice, as opposed to S&C work? "Coaching on the fly" and trying to maximize reps in team, skelly, inside periods while making corrections in the film room are pretty common place, so I wouldn't consider that "outside the box" thinking. Exactly how does this apply to the teaching of football? |
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Post by kylem56 on Dec 29, 2019 21:44:48 GMT -6
Coaches For those of you familiar with "sprint based practice planning", what are your experiences with it? Good? Bad? I learned about it from watching a presentation on www.chiefpigskin.com from Brad Dixon at Camp Point Central HS in Illinois and I have been gathering notes on it from presentations and the track-field consortium website and reaching out to other coaches. I have probaly close to 80 pages of notes on it but I am really looking to hear from those who use it. For those not familiar with it, its premise is based on shorter practices, "sprint days", warming up with speed training based exercisesand eliminating static stretches, practicing fast, with adequate opportunities for rest. Much of its theory grounded in track/sprinters training. At first I was very skeptical and chalked it up to a "when you have talent, it doesn't matter how you do it" kind of theory but the more I have researched, seen film of teams, talked to coaches, and verified their science with guys I trust, I can see its merits but have many questions still. Many of the ideas are unconventional but its hard to argue with the success that some of these coaches are having. It seems alot of the HS football coaches utilizing this are based in Illinois.. One article that briefly discusses this method: trackfootballconsortium.com/the-cross-country-football-connection/As a head coach at a small school program, it is intriguing to me but I still want to learn more. I plan on going to the RPR Level 1 certification on January 25 in Columbus which RPR (and yes I have read the threads and the various viewpoints on it) is a small component of this practice planning method but I am really looking for those who practice with these methods and practice planning "outside the box". I think it is generally accepted that static stretches as a prep for an activity are unnecessary (and some may say detrimental). As far as the rest, how would that idea be incorporated with actual FOOTBALL practice, as opposed to S&C work? "Coaching on the fly" and trying to maximize reps in team, skelly, inside periods while making corrections in the film room are pretty common place, so I wouldn't consider that "outside the box" thinking. Exactly how does this apply to the teaching of football? Coach excuse my inability to fully explain the sprint based practice planning as it just being about eliminating static stretches or coaching on the fly. I am more interested in learning how people are being successful with 1hr 45 minute practices, incorporating adequate rest in between reps, incorporating sprint based/speed training type work into their practices. My question is more from the angle of, how do you practice for that short amount of time, provide so much rest (which has to be less reps overall) and still be successful? I'm also interested in learning how others practice plan outside the box. key word...LEARN. I'm not here to sell one coach's way of doing things, I am more interested in discussing its validity, and hearing how others may have a similar model |
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Post by coachd5085 on Dec 29, 2019 22:03:52 GMT -6
I think it is generally accepted that static stretches as a prep for an activity are unnecessary (and some may say detrimental). As far as the rest, how would that idea be incorporated with actual FOOTBALL practice, as opposed to S&C work? "Coaching on the fly" and trying to maximize reps in team, skelly, inside periods while making corrections in the film room are pretty common place, so I wouldn't consider that "outside the box" thinking. Exactly how does this apply to the teaching of football? Coach excuse my inability to fully explain the sprint based practice planning as it just being about eliminating static stretches or coaching on the fly. I am more interested in learning how people are being successful with 1hr 45 minute practices, incorporating adequate rest in between reps, incorporating sprint based/speed training type work into their practices. My question is more from the angle of, how do you practice for that short amount of time, provide so much rest (which has to be less reps overall) and still be successful? I'm also interested in learning how others practice plan outside the box. key word...LEARN. I'm not here to sell one coach's way of doing things, I am more interested in discussing its validity, and hearing how others may have a similar model I would be interested in hearing that too. Especially the rest/practice reps situation. I just don't see how less reps would benefit the football aspect. |
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Post by kylem56 on Dec 29, 2019 22:17:38 GMT -6
Coach excuse my inability to fully explain the sprint based practice planning as it just being about eliminating static stretches or coaching on the fly. I am more interested in learning how people are being successful with 1hr 45 minute practices, incorporating adequate rest in between reps, incorporating sprint based/speed training type work into their practices. My question is more from the angle of, how do you practice for that short amount of time, provide so much rest (which has to be less reps overall) and still be successful? I'm also interested in learning how others practice plan outside the box. key word...LEARN. I'm not here to sell one coach's way of doing things, I am more interested in discussing its validity, and hearing how others may have a similar model I would be interested in hearing that too. Especially the rest/practice reps situation. I just don't see how less reps would benefit the football aspect. I agree. Without posting his presentation without his permission, from what I gather, they are doing approximately 12-15 full speed reps on a "sprint' day meaning the play is done full speed vs. bags, then the offense walks back (rests of approximate 35 seconds) then runs another play full speed and so on. Another thing he mentioned was only wearing full pads 1 day a week (Wednesdays) and not going on the field on Mondays. Really curious to hear from those who do this how it is working for you. I read in another thread how coaches were ripping this coach who has spoken on this practice philosophy for losing in the state finals because while they may have fast, they were not "Strong". Regardless, To each his own, but my goal this off-season is learning different ways of practice planning and I don't care how outside the box it is if it can be backed up. |
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Post by fantom on Dec 29, 2019 22:44:53 GMT -6
I would be interested in hearing that too. Especially the rest/practice reps situation. I just don't see how less reps would benefit the football aspect. I agree. Without posting his presentation without his permission, from what I gather, they are doing approximately 12-15 full speed reps on a "sprint' day meaning the play is done full speed vs. bags, then the offense walks back (rests of approximate 35 seconds) then runs another play full speed and so on. Another thing he mentioned was only wearing full pads 1 day a week (Wednesdays) and not going on the field on Mondays. Really curious to hear from those who do this how it is working for you. I read in another thread how coaches were ripping this coach who has spoken on this practice philosophy for losing in the state finals because while they may have fast, they were not "Strong". Regardless, To each his own, but my goal this off-season is learning different ways of practice planning and I don't care how outside the box it is if it can be backed up. I'm also not here to argue. Just learning. I wonder how this affects the defense. |
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Post by morris on Dec 29, 2019 22:53:53 GMT -6
I’ll try to explain my understanding on the reps part. It is based on the different energy systems. Now full speed is a little misleading. What he is referring to is max velocity. So players have to cover a decent distance to be able reach max velocity. Then players need enough time to fully recover.
For example if you run jet sweep or working deeper pass routes on sprint days. If your more like a wing-t team you could run belly but have the players sprint 30-40 yards past the LOS.
On non sprint days it looks like your typical football practice. You’re not going to reach max velocity in most typical football drills. If players don’t get enough time to recover it ends up training the wrong energy system. You need to train both but you can train the other system (what most of us think of as conditioning) by doing things like tempo runs.
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Post by kylem56 on Dec 29, 2019 23:11:17 GMT -6
I’ll try to explain my understanding on the reps part. It is based on the different energy systems. Now full speed is a little misleading. What he is referring to is max velocity. So players have to cover a decent distance to be able reach max velocity. Then players need enough time to fully recover. For example if you run jet sweep or working deeper pass routes on sprint days. If your more like a wing-t team you could run belly but have the players sprint 30-40 yards past the LOS. On non sprint days it looks like your typical football practice. You’re not going to reach max velocity in most typical football drills. If players don’t get enough time to recover it ends up training the wrong energy system. You need to train both but you can train the other system (what most of us think of as conditioning) by doing things like tempo runs. now Coach correct me if I am wrong but the premise is also that they are only doing a limited amount of reps to reach max velocity on "sprint days" ? |
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Post by morris on Dec 30, 2019 7:13:02 GMT -6
Yes it is a limited amount. I don’t remember right off the top of my head but it’s small. We did sprint days on Mondays since that is when JV would have their games (games count as sprint days). Monday practices in my experience haven’t always been the best practices. So Monday we would sprint, lift and keep things fairly light.
A lot of what they (the people who take this approach) do isn’t really that crazy. Most of us aren’t doing a lot of hitting in practice anymore. I think people in general are lifting differently than when we played (if you’re older like me). The RPR stuff has been around for awhile just under a different name. Teams started to stop doing gassers and every older conditioning when Air Raid stuff starting happening in the mid 90s. The hardest part for some people is on certain days there is just longer rest periods between reps and you change your focus as far as what you work on.
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Post by larrymoe on Dec 30, 2019 7:37:07 GMT -6
I would be interested in hearing that too. Especially the rest/practice reps situation. I just don't see how less reps would benefit the football aspect. I agree. Without posting his presentation without his permission, from what I gather, they are doing approximately 12-15 full speed reps on a "sprint' day meaning the play is done full speed vs. bags, then the offense walks back (rests of approximate 35 seconds) then runs another play full speed and so on. Another thing he mentioned was only wearing full pads 1 day a week (Wednesdays) and not going on the field on Mondays. Really curious to hear from those who do this how it is working for you. I read in another thread how coaches were ripping this coach who has spoken on this practice philosophy for losing in the state finals because while they may have fast, they were not "Strong". Regardless, To each his own, but my goal this off-season is learning different ways of practice planning and I don't care how outside the box it is if it can be backed up. It's probably more accurate to say they got manhandled in the championship because their half of the bracket was very poor in comparison to the champion's. There were probably 4-6 teams from the north bracket that would have done the same thing to them. I will also add that after looking it up, Camp Point was actually MORE successful win/loss wise prior to going to the track football stuff. |
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Post by morris on Dec 30, 2019 8:27:58 GMT -6
I don’t know anything about Camp Point (make up of the school, history, etc) but I would guess the judgement of more successful was based off of record? We all know a lot of factors go into that. Your talent. The talent of the other team. I don’t know if it’s completely fair to just look at the record and say a team was more or less successful.
What teams that have used this approach have talked about is being healthier and they’ve gotten faster.
As far as how it effects/works with the defense I don’t think it changes much. You do pursuit drills on certain days. You work against deep routes on certain days. DL works on chasing screens on certain days. You do certain special teams on certain days due to the running.
I think the overall approach sounds a little crazy in writing but when you look at it I don’t think it’s that crazy. I think it for the most of it is just reorganizing practice a little. Cut out the running for conditioning purposes (that’s a different conversation there).
We haven’t went full blown into the approach. I know through the season we are pretty fresh and healthy. I know our losses had more to do with play calling and things like that as opposed to using this approach.
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Post by larrymoe on Dec 30, 2019 8:32:35 GMT -6
I don’t know anything about Camp Point (make up of the school, history, etc) but I would guess the judgement of more successful was based off of record? We all know a lot of factors go into that. Your talent. The talent of the other team. I don’t know if it’s completely fair to just look at the record and say a team was more or less successful. What teams that have used this approach have talked about is being healthier and they’ve gotten faster. As far as how it effects/works with the defense I don’t think it changes much. You do pursuit drills on certain days. You work against deep routes on certain days. DL works on chasing screens on certain days. You do certain special teams on certain days due to the running. I think the overall approach sounds a little crazy in writing but when you look at it I don’t think it’s that crazy. I think it for the most of it is just reorganizing practice a little. Cut out the running for conditioning purposes (that’s a different conversation there). We haven’t went full blown into the approach. I know through the season we are pretty fresh and healthy. I know our losses had more to do with play calling and things like that as opposed to using this approach. They had 4 double digit win totals in his 1st 4 years with 2 appearances in the semifinals of a higher class- used to be 2A, now 1A. 1 in the past 3-4 since they went to the track football stuff. Same regular season conference/schedule. I just think it's important to have a bit of perspective before gulping all the Kool Aid. It's not as if this program revolutionized a terrible program. By a lot of metrics, they're actually worse off. Also, as a full disclaimer- this team bet mine in the playoffs early in Coach Dixons time there. He's a good coach. I think it's just dishonest to act as if this program is the magic bullet that led to their championship game run. |
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Post by coachd5085 on Dec 30, 2019 9:24:52 GMT -6
I don’t know anything about Camp Point (make up of the school, history, etc) but I would guess the judgement of more successful was based off of record? We all know a lot of factors go into that. Your talent. The talent of the other team. I don’t know if it’s completely fair to just look at the record and say a team was more or less successful. What teams that have used this approach have talked about is being healthier and they’ve gotten faster. As far as how it effects/works with the defense I don’t think it changes much. You do pursuit drills on certain days. You work against deep routes on certain days. DL works on chasing screens on certain days. You do certain special teams on certain days due to the running. I think the overall approach sounds a little crazy in writing but when you look at it I don’t think it’s that crazy. I think it for the most of it is just reorganizing practice a little. Cut out the running for conditioning purposes (that’s a different conversation there). We haven’t went full blown into the approach. I know through the season we are pretty fresh and healthy. I know our losses had more to do with play calling and things like that as opposed to using this approach. They had 4 double digit win totals in his 1st 4 years with 2 appearances in the semifinals of a higher class- used to be 2A, now 1A. 1 in the past 3-4 since they went to the track football stuff. Same regular season conference/schedule. I just think it's important to have a bit of perspective before gulping all the Kool Aid. It's not as if this program revolutionized a terrible program. By a lot of metrics, they're actually worse off. Also, as a full disclaimer- this team bet mine in the playoffs early in Coach Dixons time there. He's a good coach. I think it's just dishonest to act as if this program is the magic bullet that led to their championship game run. I would go as far as saying that if a team is looking to use it as a magic bullet, they will probably be even worse. |
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Post by mariner42 on Dec 30, 2019 9:55:59 GMT -6
I pay attention to Coach Dixon's philosophy and there's a lot of it that I think is REALLY important. I can't pretend to be 100% aware of every detail of his program, but I've read enough to have a good general understanding of his world view.
The Good:
1 - Keeping your team fresh. Football is a LONG season and your kids need to still enjoy football in late October and into November. This means being aware of accumulated fatigue, which is just good coaching. You see this with coaches who do less and less work in full gear and less and less full speed as the season goes on. During our state semi-final run last year we spent probably 75% of our practices in shells or just helmets and physicality was definitely not our issue.
2 - Challenging the norm is good. That said, I don't think MOST football coaches are the conservative/regressive cavemen that a lot of folks seem to imagine.
3 - Speed kills, so learning to play fast matters.
The Bad:
1 - Football isn't just speed, it's also strength and endurance. Pursuit drill, imo, shouldn't be a 'fresh' period. Ours lasts 10m tops and our guys are gassed after, but they are better about pursuing the ball while fatigued and trying to force 3 and outs. Tying into the idea of freshness, however, this last year I only did pursuit drill 3 times because we were so innately good at pursuit that it wasn't necessary.
2 - Speed also comes from technical proficiency and assignment mastery, both of which take time.
3 - I don't know if this philosophy works if you've got some 'meh' quality coaches. We've definitely got guys in our program who run indy drills, set up cones, etc, and that's their big contribution. Seems to me you need some guys getting after it to go whole hog on this.
The Ugly:
1 - I think presentation matters and Tony Holler in particular doesn't always present his stance in a way that people want to listen to. I LOVE a lot of his ideas, I think Chris Korfist is insanely brilliant, RPR is dope as hell, I just think sometimes they feel like that teenage girl who's constantly projecting the image of "OMG I'm SO different, I'm not like other girls!!1!"
Another resource on this kind of idea is in Fergus Connolly's newest book The Process which was co-written with Joe DeFranco's right hand man Cam Josse. I'm still debating whether it's worth the price, but there's a lot of ideas in it that'll make you re-examine your practices and weekly setup.
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Post by 60zgo on Dec 30, 2019 10:53:02 GMT -6
Following.
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Post by Coach.A on Dec 30, 2019 11:33:13 GMT -6
For example if you run jet sweep or working deeper pass routes on sprint days. If your more like a wing-t team you could run belly but have the players sprint 30-40 yards past the LOS. On non sprint days it looks like your typical football practice. You’re not going to reach max velocity in most typical football drills. If players don’t get enough time to recover it ends up training the wrong energy system. You need to train both but you can train the other system (what most of us think of as conditioning) by doing things like tempo runs. I think the true value in having players sprint 30 yards downfield is that it teaches FINISH. I think it's great drill to add during the week, but I'm not sure if I buy in to how this is a newly invented practice philosophy. Seems to me that the vast majority of coaches are already doing a lot of these things...and have been for decades now. Things like less padded practices, reducing the length of practice as the season progresses, greater focus on explosive power and max strength in the weight room vs. "make you puke" / endurance type workouts, greater emphasis on recovery, etc. I'm always leery when people try to assign new names (e.g. "sprint based practice planning) to things most people are already doing....usually it's because they're trying to sell you something. |
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Post by morris on Dec 30, 2019 11:53:32 GMT -6
The thing is I don’t think they are really selling anything. I guess you could say they are selling RPR (which was something before it was renamed/branded) or going to the clinics they hold a couple of times a year (but those are for track and football). It’s not like any of these guys are really selling a service or anything.
I agree that a lot of what they are talking about isn’t new and is much more common practice. I agree that a number of things about it people look at as say “Well yeah that’s just good practice habits/methods”
We also have to accept that we (members here) aren’t necessarily the norm. We all know, coach against and coach with guys that don’t spend as much time researching, learning and debating football as we do. There are still programs that do or would if they could beat the crap out of each other every day. They would run their kids into the ground. Some of those programs might even achieve a pretty high level even with those methods.
I kind of look at it like weightlifting programs. When you start looking at all the different ones. While they are all different there are a lot of similarities. Guys choose different programs for different reasons.
I don’t think anyone is trying to convince anyone “This is the way”. I don’t anyone thinks this is a magic bullet. It’s just trying to figure out/see if there is a better way than what way than what one is currently doing it.
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Post by coachd5085 on Dec 30, 2019 12:32:20 GMT -6
For example if you run jet sweep or working deeper pass routes on sprint days. If your more like a wing-t team you could run belly but have the players sprint 30-40 yards past the LOS. On non sprint days it looks like your typical football practice. You’re not going to reach max velocity in most typical football drills. If players don’t get enough time to recover it ends up training the wrong energy system. You need to train both but you can train the other system (what most of us think of as conditioning) by doing things like tempo runs. I think the true value in having players sprint 30 yards downfield is that it teaches FINISH. I think it's great drill to add during the week, but I'm not sure if I buy in to how this is a newly invented practice philosophy. I understand what you are saying here, but I don't think you are talking about the same thing. Not really. The idea of "finish" is one of conditioning, and one could argue mental toughness. That is not the desired outcome those being referred to want from this drills. As was mentioned, they do it when completely recovered. It isn't about pushing through something. |
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Post by kylem56 on Dec 30, 2019 19:50:41 GMT -6
The thing is I don’t think they are really selling anything. I guess you could say they are selling RPR (which was something before it was renamed/branded) or going to the clinics they hold a couple of times a year (but those are for track and football). It’s not like any of these guys are really selling a service or anything. I agree that a lot of what they are talking about isn’t new and is much more common practice. I agree that a number of things about it people look at as say “Well yeah that’s just good practice habits/methods” We also have to accept that we (members here) aren’t necessarily the norm. We all know, coach against and coach with guys that don’t spend as much time researching, learning and debating football as we do. There are still programs that do or would if they could beat the crap out of each other every day. They would run their kids into the ground. Some of those programs might even achieve a pretty high level even with those methods. I kind of look at it like weightlifting programs. When you start looking at all the different ones. While they are all different there are a lot of similarities. Guys choose different programs for different reasons. I don’t think anyone is trying to convince anyone “This is the way”. I don’t anyone thinks this is a magic bullet. It’s just trying to figure out/see if there is a better way than what way than what one is currently doing it. Bingo! For those who have PM'd me, I am not trying to sell a damn thing, and my intention isnt promoting this coach or RPR. I posted on here for the sake of discussion and interested in hearing if others have used this practice planning, do something similar, etc. Personally I am looking for different ways of doing things practice wise and don't mind stepping outside the box to do it. Not looking for any magic bullets, maybe just a few ideas on how I can restructure our practices to be more efficient and get more our of our student-athletes. Thank you to those who have provided input and information |
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Post by kylem56 on Dec 30, 2019 19:54:04 GMT -6
I pay attention to Coach Dixon's philosophy and there's a lot of it that I think is REALLY important. I can't pretend to be 100% aware of every detail of his program, but I've read enough to have a good general understanding of his world view. The Good: 1 - Keeping your team fresh. Football is a LONG season and your kids need to still enjoy football in late October and into November. This means being aware of accumulated fatigue, which is just good coaching. You see this with coaches who do less and less work in full gear and less and less full speed as the season goes on. During our state semi-final run last year we spent probably 75% of our practices in shells or just helmets and physicality was definitely not our issue. 2 - Challenging the norm is good. That said, I don't think MOST football coaches are the conservative/regressive cavemen that a lot of folks seem to imagine. 3 - Speed kills, so learning to play fast matters. The Bad: 1 - Football isn't just speed, it's also strength and endurance. Pursuit drill, imo, shouldn't be a 'fresh' period. Ours lasts 10m tops and our guys are gassed after, but they are better about pursuing the ball while fatigued and trying to force 3 and outs. Tying into the idea of freshness, however, this last year I only did pursuit drill 3 times because we were so innately good at pursuit that it wasn't necessary. 2 - Speed also comes from technical proficiency and assignment mastery, both of which take time. 3 - I don't know if this philosophy works if you've got some 'meh' quality coaches. We've definitely got guys in our program who run indy drills, set up cones, etc, and that's their big contribution. Seems to me you need some guys getting after it to go whole hog on this. The Ugly: 1 - I think presentation matters and Tony Holler in particular doesn't always present his stance in a way that people want to listen to. I LOVE a lot of his ideas, I think Chris Korfist is insanely brilliant, RPR is dope as hell, I just think sometimes they feel like that teenage girl who's constantly projecting the image of "OMG I'm SO different, I'm not like other girls!!1!" Another resource on this kind of idea is in Fergus Connolly's newest book The Process which was co-written with Joe DeFranco's right hand man Cam Josse. I'm still debating whether it's worth the price, but there's a lot of ideas in it that'll make you re-examine your practices and weekly setup. Side note coach- Connolly's book The Process is a great book and was worth the price for me. Alot of take aways and ideas from it like you mentioned. I found it much easier to read than "Game Changer". |
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Post by mariner42 on Dec 30, 2019 23:44:30 GMT -6
I pay attention to Coach Dixon's philosophy and there's a lot of it that I think is REALLY important. I can't pretend to be 100% aware of every detail of his program, but I've read enough to have a good general understanding of his world view. The Good: 1 - Keeping your team fresh. Football is a LONG season and your kids need to still enjoy football in late October and into November. This means being aware of accumulated fatigue, which is just good coaching. You see this with coaches who do less and less work in full gear and less and less full speed as the season goes on. During our state semi-final run last year we spent probably 75% of our practices in shells or just helmets and physicality was definitely not our issue. 2 - Challenging the norm is good. That said, I don't think MOST football coaches are the conservative/regressive cavemen that a lot of folks seem to imagine. 3 - Speed kills, so learning to play fast matters. The Bad: 1 - Football isn't just speed, it's also strength and endurance. Pursuit drill, imo, shouldn't be a 'fresh' period. Ours lasts 10m tops and our guys are gassed after, but they are better about pursuing the ball while fatigued and trying to force 3 and outs. Tying into the idea of freshness, however, this last year I only did pursuit drill 3 times because we were so innately good at pursuit that it wasn't necessary. 2 - Speed also comes from technical proficiency and assignment mastery, both of which take time. 3 - I don't know if this philosophy works if you've got some 'meh' quality coaches. We've definitely got guys in our program who run indy drills, set up cones, etc, and that's their big contribution. Seems to me you need some guys getting after it to go whole hog on this. The Ugly: 1 - I think presentation matters and Tony Holler in particular doesn't always present his stance in a way that people want to listen to. I LOVE a lot of his ideas, I think Chris Korfist is insanely brilliant, RPR is dope as hell, I just think sometimes they feel like that teenage girl who's constantly projecting the image of "OMG I'm SO different, I'm not like other girls!!1!" Another resource on this kind of idea is in Fergus Connolly's newest book The Process which was co-written with Joe DeFranco's right hand man Cam Josse. I'm still debating whether it's worth the price, but there's a lot of ideas in it that'll make you re-examine your practices and weekly setup. Side note coach- Connolly's book The Process is a great book and was worth the price for me. Alot of take aways and ideas from it like you mentioned. I found it much easier to read than "Game Changer". Yeah, Game Changer is a slog to get through for sure. |
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Post by center on Dec 31, 2019 11:48:18 GMT -6
The thing is I don’t think they are really selling anything. I guess you could say they are selling RPR (which was something before it was renamed/branded) or going to the clinics they hold a couple of times a year (but those are for track and football). It’s not like any of these guys are really selling a service or anything. I agree that a lot of what they are talking about isn’t new and is much more common practice. I agree that a number of things about it people look at as say “Well yeah that’s just good practice habits/methods” We also have to accept that we (members here) aren’t necessarily the norm. We all know, coach against and coach with guys that don’t spend as much time researching, learning and debating football as we do. There are still programs that do or would if they could beat the crap out of each other every day. They would run their kids into the ground. Some of those programs might even achieve a pretty high level even with those methods. I kind of look at it like weightlifting programs. When you start looking at all the different ones. While they are all different there are a lot of similarities. Guys choose different programs for different reasons. I don’t think anyone is trying to convince anyone “This is the way”. I don’t anyone thinks this is a magic bullet. It’s just trying to figure out/see if there is a better way than what way than what one is currently doing it. Bingo! For those who have PM'd me, I am not trying to sell a damn thing, and my intention isnt promoting this coach or RPR. I posted on here for the sake of discussion and interested in hearing if others have used this practice planning, do something similar, etc. Personally I am looking for different ways of doing things practice wise and don't mind stepping outside the box to do it. Not looking for any magic bullets, maybe just a few ideas on how I can restructure our practices to be more efficient and get more our of our student-athletes. Thank you to those who have provided input and information The guy who had kind of started this line of thinking is a track coach from Illinois. Just retired. Some love, some hate, most do both with his ideas. You could debate them for hours. In the meantime one thing a coach can do right now is take a hard look at your current practice situation in relation to your program. What do you do that you know makes a difference What are you not sure of? Is there anything that is wasted or not productive. Can you get rid of it? Minimize it. |
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Post by NC1974 on Dec 31, 2019 12:51:21 GMT -6
After watching a couple of Dixon's presentations and reading the feed the cats articles, here are thoughts I have:
Biggest takeaways for me:
-keep guys as fresh as possible for game day
-don't let a real hard (too hard) practice today, ruin our ability to have a good day tomorrow
-instead of the idea of "make practice so hard that the game seems easy" go with "the game should be the hardest part of the week". Plan your week with that in mind
-make time for recovery in between reps, over weekend, etc.
Things I still feel unsure about:
-how do you get all your stuff done throughout the week?
-where is the fine line between minimum effective dose, and too little.
-what if you're a no huddle team, how does that change things
-what about linemen?
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Post by morris on Dec 31, 2019 15:03:28 GMT -6
I’m by no means an expert on this so this is just my ideas.
You might have to cut somethings. That might be reps or scheme or something.
Finding the right minimum dose is really difficult. That can change week to week and season to season.
I don’t really think it bothers no huddle. We are no huddle going between 60-70 plays a game on offense. Our kids were fine.
OL wise I don’t think it is hard. In your typical practice how much running is the OL doing? I’d say they very rarely if ever get to max velocity. So once or twice a week they sprint. Past that they do their typical stuff. Maybe you only hit and drive a sled once or twice a week. Maybe you don’t try to run 4 plays in a minute during inside run.
I know missing reps or losing reps has come up. I think if you go this route you have to take a different approach to reps. One you’re looking for high quality reps. If you do it 3-4 times and they are high quality then maybe you stop and move on. If you do it and it’s crap you sometimes need to accept the fact that continuing to rep will not improve things or make things worse. Of all the things in this sprint approach I believe this is honestly the biggest thing influenced by the track world. I know that approach was used by Charlie Francis (sp).
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Post by 60zgo on Dec 31, 2019 15:33:23 GMT -6
I think it should be viewed as High Performance. I want High Performance on game day, so my practice week will be built around that idea and then work backward. I may have a smaller playbook. I may get fewer reps, but they will be high-quality reps. A lot will depend on your offense. An Air Raid team will structure its practice week totally different than a Double Wing team.
Instead of focusing on the sprint aspect I think a better way to look at it is 'intensity':
-Monday might be HIGH INTENSITY, with full pads and contact.
-Tuesday could be off completely, a walk-thru, or shirts and helmets vs pads. Wed might bring the intensity up a little in shells vs pads.
-Thursday being your ghost game or run thru.
The High-Intensity day could go anywhere M-W honestly and success on the U shaped training curve is well documented.
Basically, you can't stack two hard days. Def not three. If you do your team will be slower, and more injured by week ten.
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Post by groundchuck on Dec 31, 2019 19:47:35 GMT -6
I am intrigued in some aspects of all this. One thing that I really think is important is finding the right effective minimum dose. That is true no matter what "system" you subscribe to in practice. When is enough enough? Like it was mentioned above, that could vary depending on the make up of your team.
The above point of not stacking back to back hard days I think also helps. Looks at the NBA and how they give certain players the second game of back to back road games off. In HS there is no way we can give a certain player or two the day off without creating a double standard. But the point is the body and mind do need to stay healthy, and stress to the body (and mind) is cumulative. If you are a playoff team you need to be healthy late.
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Post by morris on Jan 1, 2020 11:18:45 GMT -6
Our RB Thor the last two years had some nagging leg issues. Mainly because he wouldn’t do what the trainer told him to do. From about halfway through both seasons he practiced very little. We did that to manage his mileage. Come Friday night we ran the hell out of him.
Two years ago we had a kid that played soccer and WR for us. So he would leave our practice and go practice soccer. We kept a close eye on him and limited what he did to keep him fresh.
We’ve been lucky in both cases that the rest of the team didn’t have an issue with it. We make it very clear to our players we want them fresh for Fridays.
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Post by 19delta on Jan 1, 2020 17:14:37 GMT -6
The thing is I don’t think they are really selling anything. I guess you could say they are selling RPR (which was something before it was renamed/branded) or going to the clinics they hold a couple of times a year (but those are for track and football). It’s not like any of these guys are really selling a service or anything. I agree that a lot of what they are talking about isn’t new and is much more common practice. I agree that a number of things about it people look at as say “Well yeah that’s just good practice habits/methods” We also have to accept that we (members here) aren’t necessarily the norm. We all know, coach against and coach with guys that don’t spend as much time researching, learning and debating football as we do. There are still programs that do or would if they could beat the crap out of each other every day. They would run their kids into the ground. Some of those programs might even achieve a pretty high level even with those methods. I kind of look at it like weightlifting programs. When you start looking at all the different ones. While they are all different there are a lot of similarities. Guys choose different programs for different reasons. I don’t think anyone is trying to convince anyone “This is the way”. I don’t anyone thinks this is a magic bullet. It’s just trying to figure out/see if there is a better way than what way than what one is currently doing it. Bingo! For those who have PM'd me, I am not trying to sell a damn thing, and my intention isnt promoting this coach or RPR. I posted on here for the sake of discussion and interested in hearing if others have used this practice planning, do something similar, etc. Personally I am looking for different ways of doing things practice wise and don't mind stepping outside the box to do it. Not looking for any magic bullets, maybe just a few ideas on how I can restructure our practices to be more efficient and get more our of our student-athletes. Thank you to those who have provided input and information I follow both Coach Dixon and Coach Holler on Twitter. If you can get past all the "we are such rebels!" drama and incessant straw man arguments, there is a lot of good content and common sense in what they post. I haven't coached high school football in several years. One of the biggest reasons I got out of it was the grind...I just didnt want to do the 2.5-3 hour practices every night, the morning film and lifting on Saturday, and even Sunday nights (at a couple places). Just wore me down. One of the biggest gripes I have had at almost all the places I have coached is that we wasted so much time...did so much stuff that just wasn't necessary and had very little to do with helping kids be better football players. But it made coaches feel better because we could say "Look how much time we are putting in!" I remember one place I was at...we were still having 3-hour practices with full-speed tackling drills Week 9 of a season in which we were 3-5. We played an 0-8 team Week 9 and they kicked our a$$ 28-0. Our kids (and most of the coaches) were DONE. Could not get that season wrapped up fast enough. Brutal. I think that anything that shortens practice and keeps kids fresh and interested is worthwhile. The team I posted about above was actually pretty talented. Big, strong OL, a couple really good backs, speed on defense. I wonder often if we had been a little smarter with that group of boys and didn't grind them into dust if things would have went differently that season. I have never seen a group of boys that happy to be finished with a football season. It should never end that way. |
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