An Interview with Jared Bidne, CSCS

An Interview with Jared Bidne, CSCS
Owner of Explosive Mechanics, LLC
by Jay Floyd (Georgia Strength Coaches Association) www.gscaonline.com

Jay Floyd: Coach Bidne, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Start out by telling us a little about yourself and your business.

Jared Bidne: My name is Jared Bidne. I am the owner of Explosive Mechanics LLC, located in Tyrone Georgia. I train athletes for better athletic performance. I am a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). I am also a USA Weightlifting Club Coach, and CPR certified. I have given two scientific presentations at national conferences for the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). I am from Senoia, Georgia a small town outside of Atlanta. I started weight training while I was in the 6th grade. I would buy books and magazines, and try to figure out ways to become faster and stronger. I have always wanted to be the best at whatever I did. While in high school I was not very good at cleans and no one could teach me how. I would see others bounce the weight off the floor and I knew from watching the Olympics on TV that there was a technique involved. After searching and wanting to become better I found an Olympic coach by the name of Ben Green. Ben Green coached 2 Olympians and two National Championship teams trained and trained me while I was in high school. Going into my senior year at a body weight of 190 I cleaned 300, benched 335, and squatted 405. After high school I played football for the University of Memphis, as a long snapper. While in College I majored in Health and Human Performance, which allowed me to get my CSCS certification. After playing football, graduating, and obtaining my certification I was still struggling on ways to increase my strength, and my running and jumping ability, for I did not increase much in college. I often looked for routines and advice form others that would help me reach my goals. While working out one day one of my friends told me that I need to stop bodybuilding, of course I did not listen because I have gotten myself so far and how dare anyone tell me to change. After much frustration I gave in and started training with my friend. We didn’t do as much work as I was use to but my bench went up 50 pounds in a relatively short period of time. We would use chains and bands, along with various methods to strengthen our weak points. After all these years I finally realized that I do not need a routine but methods; methods that help me develop specific strengths and locate weak points. After training and finding out more about various methods I have learned how to apply them in so many different ways in order to help other athletes achieve their goals, without experiencing the same problems I did. I have learned to be more open-minded and experimental. I am a strength scientist. I live the life of training and practice what I preach; it’s through my own faults, trials, experiences, and continual education that helps me help others.


JF: Can you tell those that may not know, a little more about your program?

JB: I use various methods, developing explosive strength, starting strength, acceleration, maximum strength, and reactive ability. Traditional weight training in the West (US) often is arranged in blocks called periodization, training one aspect for a few weeks or months and then switches to something new. Most coaches and strength professionals do not know that if a specific skill or movement goes unused for more than 3 weeks a percentage of what the athlete has gained will be lost. Another problem with sports training in the West is most coaches use a body building approach low sets and high reps, causing the muscle to become bigger, but not always fast and powerful. This is one of the major reasons so many people say weight training will make them bigger and slower. In sports athletes need not to always be big, but strong and fast. For an athlete to develop power, lightweights, low reps, and maximum speed should be used. For an athlete to gain maximum strength a number of lifts each month should be dedicated to above 90% of 1RM. All can be done without experiencing bigger slower muscles. I use what is called conjugated training, using various methods at once. By using conjugated training and rotating various methods and developing specific strengths I can continually increase an athletes performance without experiencing plateaus, and a large increase in muscle mass. I have decreased baseball players 60 yard times by more than 0.5 tenths of a second without any running. I have also decreased a softball teams 40 yard times by 0.28 on average with no stance changes, or running mechanic drills. I have had 2 twelve-year-old boys jump on a 40 inch box with no pre run and they are short in stature, less than 5’2”. I have 6 high school athletes that have increased their bench 70+ pounds in less than 8 months and they were previously trained. I also have two high school female volleyball players that have gone from benching 55lbs to 125 and 130lbs without big bulky muscles or a manly appearance.


JF: Those are impressive gains. What are some aspects of your program that are unique?

JB: I focus on results and continual performance improvements. All of my athletes have a logbook, each training session is written down, and they can see that they are getting better. I do not want anyone to walk away and say I think I improved; they need to know they improved. We have what we need to get results not a lot of fancy unused equipment. The equipment that I have is not found in normal gyms or in high schools. It is not about how many exercises you perform but the quality and focus of each exercise, training session, and what each exercise is trying to accomplish. Most high school coaches I have seen only test the bench, squat, clean and rarely test the 40, vertical, or ever the broad jump. The problem with not testing the vertical, 40yd dash, and the broad jump is these are power performance test. Without using these tests often a coach does not know if his athletes are getting better at moving their body. They may be getting stronger, but can they move? Without testing what you are trying to accomplish and constantly making changes to the program some athletes may not ever get better at running or jumping. Each program needs indicators or something to prove that what they are doing is working. I am always testing my athletes and using various means and methods to help my athletes reach their goals. I do not have a set program where everyone comes in and does the same thing all the time; I make adjustments according to the athlete. I may have a very strong athlete, but he or she may lack explosive power, or one may be able to run and jump very well but is not strong. I train them for what is holding them back in order to gain continual progress. Most coaches think that cleans, power cleans, or hang cleans develop explosive power, and by lifting more weight in these lifts the athletes are more powerful. If the aforementioned is so true how come many of the athletes I get from the high schools perform poorly on the vertical jump and broad jump? Truth be told, the athletes are not taught properly, have poor techniques, and sets, and reps are not regulated to where the athletes can maximize the potential of the lifts. Let’s not take anything away from Olympic lifters they are strong, powerful, and explosive, but they have excellent technique and a planned approach as to how they lift. I am not against the Olympic lifts they just take longer for athletes to learn, and some may never develop the technique to reap their benefits. I think too many coaches look at cleans as the only way to develop power, but there are many more effective and efficient ways to develop power.

JF: We are in agreement about teaching the Olympic Lifts. Way too many high school coaches do not have a clue. I would have counted myself in the group until just recently. Now, I know you have trained some professional and college athletes. Is the training you use for them any different than your high school athletes?

JB: It truly depends upon the athlete. Most look at college and professional athletes, want to know what they did to get where they are, and automatically assume they are well trained. Most often pure skill has allowed the athlete to achieve the success he or she has, but for the other not so skilled athletes, hard work and dedication to the weight room has helped them. With that being said some college and professional athletes are not well trained and may train like someone would think a high school athlete would and some high school athletes may train like someone would think a college or professional athlete would. The stronger and more advanced athlete will utilize more of the advanced methods, while the not so strong athlete will use a more basic approach. Others do not need to think that just because an athlete has played a professional sport he or she knows about training.

JF: I agree completely. Just because someone has been successful in a sport, it doesn’t mean they know how to train themselves or anybody else. One subject I hear debated is that athletes from different sports should train specific to their sport. You always hear about Baseball vs. Football vs. Basketball, etc. Do you train your athletes any differently?

JB: I try not to get tied up into the focus of different sports, as far as having the athlete do highly sport related activities. I train the muscle involved in the sport, and often stay away from directly mimicking sporting movements. Reason being is for most athletes especially at the high school level, need a solid foundation of strength. The stronger the athlete is against his or her own body the better chance he or she has at preventing injury, and moving his or her body. Moreover, training for specific sport task could actually harm the athlete if he or she does not have the required strength to handle the task being performed. Athletes can benefit even from basic movements. We hear all too often that certain lifts do not apply to certain sports at all. Lets take a basic movement like the bench press, you may often here that the bench press is not sport specific to any sport, if you solely look at the movement the answer may be no. However, it is not the movement that matters as much as what the movement is training. A few good examples would be an offensive lineman would need a strong-arm lock out to create separation between himself and his opponent. A baseball player, or any other overhead-throwing athlete needs to know, the triceps initiate acceleration of the arm, and the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi (lats), deltoids, and muscles of the rotator cuff (subscapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor) all propel the hand forward during ball release, all of which are muscles the bench press trains. Most often baseball players say they do not want a big chest because it will slow them down, first off they need not to train like a bodybuilder, and second a big chest has not hindered Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, or Mark McGuire. Take a look at basketball and the chest pass or a shot from down town, all of which require a strong explosive upper body. Athletes of all sports need strong abs, powerful legs, strong back, and strong upper body. I believe most people think a big muscle is a strong muscle, but that is not the case. An athlete can recruit more alpha motor neurons to pull on particular fibers without the fibers experiencing much growth if trained properly. To often people look on the surface and not the underlying factors of what is truly trying to be accomplished. I have helped a baseball player go from throwing 89mph to 93mph, and a softball player go from low 50’s to mid 50’s. I have helped others pick up their swing speed 5+mph. I have helped a basketball player go form not dunking to dunking with two hands. A person must not always associate weight training with bodybuilding. Take a look at Olympic lifters, bodybuilders, power lifters, and strongman competitors all of which train with weights but all have a different appearance, and often the bodybuilder is the weakest one.

JF: What are some issues you face with your athletes on a daily basis? Where do they Struggle?

JB: A problem that I see with many athletes is, they were not taught proper form and have developed their own way for getting a lift completed. I also see a lot of athletes who are not well developed. The problem with the bad form is that the athlete can do more with bad form in the beginning, but bad technique will hold them back in the end and lead to injuries. Athletes want to do what is easy and what they are better at, and when taught to train with proper form they often have to start off using lighter weight in order to correct the problem. A competitive athlete does not want to use lighter weight resulting in a hard time trying to get the athlete to kick the old habit. Another problem is all too often the backside of the athlete, the lats, hamstrings, glutes, and lower back, are all underdeveloped. This can lead to injuries and or hold an athlete from reaching a goal. The lats help stabilize the shoulder and bar path of the bench press, while the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back play a very importing role in running, jumping, and most athletic activities. Athletes need to be trained in the muscles that are going to help them the most, and trained in a way to where the muscles develop maximum strength, strength endurance, dynamic strength, starting strength, and all the other important qualities a muscle must possess. Let’s take the squat for example; the thighs, low back, hips, and hamstrings play a very important roll in squatting, with the main emphasis on the thighs. If the lower back, hips, and hamstrings are weak and the athlete is experiencing a plateau, continuing to squat is not the answer. The athlete must develop the other helper muscles in order to gain continual progress. The same goes for running. An athlete can go run and run and not get any faster, because it is the force production placed in the ground that the athlete is lacking. Is changing the look of the car (technique) going to make the car go faster, or is increasing the horsepower of the car. So many people look at a without assessing the cause.

JF: Another issue that all strength coaches face is questions from other coaches. Have you had these issues and what did you do to resolve them?

JB: More often than I would like. I believe the problem starts because sport training is relatively new in the US (West), and most coaches and strength coaches grew up in the 70’s and 80’s when bodybuilding was becoming popular in the US. This is one of the main reasons if not the main reason so many older coaches out side of football (baseball, basketball, golf) tell their athlete’s strength training will make them big and slow. Strength training also gets a bad knock because football players are often bigger than other athletes, but it is a sport of contact and the bigger, stronger, faster athlete will generally win. Other sports must realize they can become stronger and faster through strength training without getting bigger if properly trained. The problem with the coaches growing up in the 70’s and 80’s is that most coaches tell us what they have done and want to see you do what they did. Too many coaches are stuck in the past and if they were trained with Western knowledge is not a good thing. Many coaches think that power cleans are king because they develop power. They only develop power if done properly and have a training program dedicated to the improvement of them. The clean is a very technical lift and many coaches have to train a lot of athletes at once and do not take the time to teach the lifts properly resulting in a lot of bad form, no power, and injuries. I have a lot of high school athletes that come to me from the local high schools and I have yet to see a descent clean. Also if they develop so much power how come the athletes that come to me cannot jump 30 inch verticals after a couple of years of a high school training program. I have female athletes that jump 30+ inches and we never perform cleans. I know the lifts very well but choose not to teach them because there are many more effective ways and safer ways to develop explosive power. The vertical jump is a good test for explosive power and the broad jump is a good test for hip strength and hip power, but these tests are not administered as much as they should by coaches. I have improved high school athlete’s verticals on average 4 inches in 6 weeks along with a broad jump average of 7 inches. The highest vertical jump improvement is 7 inches and the largest broad jump improvement has been 13 inches, by two different high school athletes all with in 8 weeks. I do not mean to keep talking about the Olympic lifts. All I am trying to do is to get coaches to think out side the box.

JF: For coaches that are new to the profession, what resources do you recommend to learn more about Strength and Conditioning?

JB: Strength coaches new to the profession should train themselves; their own bodies will give them the greatest knowledge. The more problems they experience with a lift or jump will result in that coach seeking information on how to improve his or her own lifts or jumps. The more the coach learns about his or her self the better that coach will be at assisting his or her athletes with problems they are experiencing.

JF: Training yourself is the best way to learn. I know how to increase the Bench, Squat, Clean, Deadlift, Vertical, 40, ect. because I have had to increase my own. I have been stuck on all those lifts and tests and had to experiment to find what works. Most people stopped training after they stopped playing their sport and were never in charge of even their own training. Now they are in charge of someone else’s training. What books, DVD’s, websites, etc, do you recommend?

JB: Here are just a few.
Science and Practice of Strength Training by Valdimir Zatsiorsky
Westside-barbell book of Methods by Louie Simmons
Science of Sport training by Thomas Kurz
Supertraining by Mel C. Siff
Explosive Power and Jumping Ability by Tadeusz Starzynski and Henrk Sozanski PhD
Fundamentals of Special Strength-Training in Sport by Y.V. Verkhoshanski
The Training of the Weightlifter by R.A. Roman
www.westside-barbell.com
www.elitefts.com
It is very important to study these books, not just merely read them. Take what they talk about not copy what they do, but apply the methods to the goals in which you are trying to accomplish. If you understand what they do and why they do it you will have a better understanding of training as a means of developing athletic performance. Go to train with a purpose. It is not about how many different lifts you do in one-day but the quality and intensity in which you do the lifts. Have a purpose and focus for training each day. I have made the mistake of looking at what others have done and have copied their routines and reach failure. The problem is that they had a different goal in mind. If you want your athletes to perform better focus on what lifts and what jumping exercises are best for developing the specific goals you are trying to reach. Use the methods mentioned in the books to better utilize the lifting and jumping exercises. Have test to measure power and strength. Most should not get strength and power confused. Just because an athlete is strong does not mean the athlete is powerful or explosive, a good example would be an athlete that is very strong but not able to run or jump very well. Strength can be better defined as the ability to move a heavy weight, while power can be defined moving a lightweight at rapid speeds. The aspects of strength and power must be developed for a more complete athlete. What good is squatting a house if you cannot jump over a doormat?

JF: Those are some very good sources. What mistakes do you think coaches make with their athletes?

JB: I would say the number one mistake coaches make is they stop learning and training themselves. I believe a good coach must train in order to truly understand the different means and methods for the development of athletic performance. Most often they fall into what is easy for them and not what is best for their athletes. I believe that many coaches make the mistake of not truly understanding what they are trying to get their athletes to accomplish. They focus on how many lifts are done and sometimes how tired they can get their athletes. They want their athletes stronger and faster so they beat them down weight room and generally higher an out side source for speed training. With proper knowledge all can be accomplished in the weight room and money can be saved, but who wants to take time to train themselves, read, and study for better performance. From my experience many coaches have a “know it all” attitude and are close-minded to new ideas, or learning. I have offered help to high schools in my local area with no charge. Most tell me, “I have been doing this for many years and I know there are new ways of training but I am going to do what I have always done.” I have also had coaches tell me “we were good in college and we are going to train the way I did.” I have had other coaches tell me the only way to get faster is just run. What an unjust thing to do the athletes who really want to make it to the next level. Coaches need not to think what is best for them, but what is best for the athlete. Coaches need to use various methods to develop specific strengths, and develop weak points so the athletes can be their best. Many coaches continue to do the same thing year after year expecting a different result.

JF: Coach Bidne, thank you for your time. I look forward to talking with you again in the future.

I need to get faster part II

I need to get faster part II
By Jared Bidne CSCS

As we have learned in “I need to get faster part I”, the ability to accelerate faster is dependent upon the force production capability of the body particularly in the legs. Strength training helps us to increase our muscles capability of producing force. We will learn later that the ability to produce the force quickly is also a factor.
Initially for non-trained individuals strength training is all they will need. Over time as the athlete increases his or her strength he or she will reach a point were strength training alone will not get them faster. With strength training the body’s ability to produce force increases but when it reaches the point to where the athlete does not become faster as a result of strength training. Strength training will then have to be supplemented with plyometric activities. Plyometric training helps to increase the rate at which the body produces force. To put it more simplistic, plyometics will help us use the new strength as functional strength. The faster you reach your muscles capability, the better you will be at in a given movement. In other words you do not want to be speeding up when the race is over. Furthermore, speed training is a new fancy way to say plyometric training and should be supplemented with strength training, not used as a replacement for. Weight training along with speed training is a step process. If the athlete does not have sufficient strength to begin plyometrics/speed training he or she could become seriously injured. To learn more or for questions or comments log on to http://www.explosivemechanics.com/ or e-mail info@explosivemechanics.com

I Need To Get Faster Part 1

I NEED TO GET FASTER
By Jared Bidne CSCS

I hear these words very often and truth be told everyone can become faster. The approach to become faster is often the turning point. Many of today’s athletes and coaches are caught up in speed performance. The thing that most do not know is how to improve speed. One may think that working on speed mechanics is the answer, but do not know that speed mechanics performed imperfectly or before the athlete is physically, mentally, or technically ready for them may develop and reinforce bad technique, which will have a negative impact on the athletes speed and could lead to injuries. I mention speed mechanics because they are different from speed drills. Speed drills are often plyometric activities used to help create a faster rate of force development. Some may think running while pulling a heavy sled or tire is a good idea, but it will actually decrease your running speed by altering your running mechanics if the sled is not properly loaded. Others may think you just have to run more to get faster, but if you run more than twice per week at max velocity it could have a negative impact on the central nervous system. The underlying fact to true speed is a good solid foundation of strength and strength in the appropriate muscle groups. Think about it this way, if you want your car to go faster do you change its looks or do you beef up the engine?
According to the author of Explosive Running, it is generally understood among sprinters that strength training can lead to greater speed and power. Depending on the type of weight-training program you undertake, you can improve running technique, increase stride length and frequency, increase speed, prevent injury, and increase muscular and aerobic endurance. For most sports athletes do not have to run very far, and the athlete’s ability to accelerate his or her body mass during sprinting is dependent upon the force production capability of the body, particular lower limb musculature. In a recent article published by the National Strength and Conditioning Association there is question about whether mastery of technique is important for athletes that are not participating in track and field sports. Moreover, technical considerations for the acceleration phase of running have less importance than for a typical sprinting event. Most athletes are always acclerating, running no more than 15 to 20 yards at a time. Therefore, the force capability of muscle is the most important consideration in developing sports speed. To learn more or for questions and comments e-mail info@explosivemechanics.com or log onto http://www.explosivemechanics.com/