The problem with strength coaching is there is no such thing as a “Coach coaching” degree. One receives a degree after accumulating enough credits but has no practical knowledge of planning or organizing a system of volume and intensity periodization nor does a student learn the proper lifting form. 99% of the time a student after graduating has never lifted in an organized contest, meaning powerlifting or Olympic lifting.
Instead they are shown how to use machines. An athlete does not have to control speed of movement, balance the apparatus or develop coordination. Lifting real weights, barbells and dumbbells is quite a different story. Lifting weights, even heavy weights, are much safer than sports like football, hockey and even baseball. All these sports acquire more injuries than lifting free weights.
Today’s strength coach tries to make a football player better in the weight room with S.S.P. instead of using G.P.P. methods. After all, a football team has several special team coaches for that very reason. A football team will hire an ex-football player to be the strength coach even though they have no experience of what it requires to develop special strength.
They can’t tell the difference between speed velocity and strength speed velocity because there is not any information taught in the classroom. For this reason, many High School, College and even Pro sports seek my expertise to make a better athlete. I developed the Westside system out of necessity after fracturing my L5 vertebrae, for the second time in 1983.
I knew there must be a better approach to training because it was missing something but what? It was Science. Yes, I was missing a scientific approach to training. Dr. Fred Hatfield PhD and world record holder in the squat wrote a book by that name in 1981. I knew Dr. Hatfield was on line with training while watching him perform very explosively. His C.A.T. was very new and advanced in 1981 and was criticized by many only because it was so different.
While recovering from my low back injury, I bought every book possible on Soviet sports training. I felt the Soviet athletes were not more advanced, but rather their training methods and methodologies were years ahead of our training systems. Why? Our systems were not systems at all. They were someone’s routine that increased some lifts for a while and then lead to no gains at all. No one applied science to training, no periodization, and no means of true adaption or restoration methods.
Tudor Bompa PhD, P.V. Komi, Thomas Kurz, Atko Viru wrote their versions of training but I looked beyond there methods and was fascinated by Dr. Michael Yessis, Soviet Sports Review. It specialized in speed training, strength training, sports medicine, weight lifting and track and field. Dr. Yessis presented articles from the top Soviet sports coaches quarterly. This was eye opening to me. I studied men like Ben Tabachnik PhD, R.A. Roman, A.S. Prilepin and track and field experts like Alasockl, T. Starzynski and H. Sozanski PhD.
I was enthralled by the works of A.S. Medvedyev, Dr. V.M. Zatsiorsky book The Science and Practice of Strength Training which mirrors the Westside system. Y.V. Verkhoshansky was a great mentor for our system. The great Bulgarian weightlifting coach Abadjayev was responsible for great contributions to our max effort training and increasing the training loads on not only weight training but jump training.
Through their data and my own expertise of merely 50 years of competing the system was developed over and over to seek perfection in physical training through physics, biomechanics, and mathematics. I was further inspired by Mel Siff PhD of Supertraining fame. Providing seminars along side Dr. Siff gave me the pleasure of discussing training and running with a genius. Dr. Nicholas Romanov PhD who on his own realized that running was not just a term but a true skill with his research achieving his Pose Method of Training.
I could not have succeeded without the men and women that train at Westside barbell, a private facility dedicated to increasing sport performance. This certificate was developed to measure the degree of understanding sports science for the betterment of sports excellence. To know your sport is important, but to understand how to develop a particular special strength that your sport demands is essential.
What is training and what is over training? How do you use delayed transformation for the sport you are coaching or participating in? All colleges recruit the most genetic athletes only to fall short in fulfilling their true potential. It was my obligation to make such a specialty certificate and it is yours as a coach to leave no stone unturned in the development sports excellence.
Like myself and the many that have adopted the methods that are outlined in the test, your results should surpass any previous methods used that most likely involved linear periodization. The Soviet coaches used progressively gradual periodization and realized it was outdated in the 1960’s. Forms of wave style periodization came on the sporting seen since and so replaced the old 8-6-5-3-2-1 system. It was really a dangerous system.
While improving one portion, let’s say power. The hypertrophy phase you just ended will start to fail as fast as 14 days because you are not training for muscle mass any more. This system simply teaches a coach to be become better, efficient and strategic in their programme knowledge and design by using these advanced methods.
If You Are To Succeed As A Strength Coach You Must Constantly Read. However don’t limit yourself to the theoretic aspects of training, instead incorporate the methods that you have learned on your athletes and more importantly on yourself. If you expect your men and women to follow your program you should be willing to use it yourself. I have listed minimum amount of books require to pass the cert. If you achieve the Westside certificate there is a longer list of continuing education list books that must be read. If you want to surpass your expectations then it is essential to read all the suggested books.
They are what I rely on when Westside hits a road block. The more I write the more I read to further my understanding of special strength and all matter of physical training. And if you follow in my footsteps you will discover the same.
Louie Simmons
