As many of you know, this past weekend I was speaking at the NSCA Ohio Strength and Conditioning State Clinic.  It was really a great honor to be able to speak at this clinic being on the same docket with some really great strength and conditioning professionals.  I love attending these clinics because I’ve learned some great exercises for speed development and I wanted to have the opportunity to give something back.

Talking with the Ohio State strength and conditioning department, this was one of the biggest state clinics to date with around 120 people attending.  I spoke at this same clinic about 4 years ago and it was half that at most.

I was going to be the very last speaker of the day, so there was no rush for me to get there.  Especially since I stayed up until 1:30am the night before watching the Lakers pull out a victory against OKC.  I then had to get up early to train a client, come back home, eat, shower, and off I go.

Because of this, I missed the first speaker, Bryan McCall from the Michael Johnson Performance at SPIRE.  I wanted to see him speak, but watching the Lakers was a priority the night before and then getting as much sleep as possible (which ended up being about 5.5 hours).

I did get to talk with him when we were seated next to each other for a roundtable discussion.  MJP started originally in Dallas and has expanded to Geneva, Ohio.  There is also a plan to go into London soon.  Bryan said that the facility was pretty awesome (I’m paraphrasing).  What’s neat is they’re going to try and do something similar as IMG, where they have athletes stay there 9 months out of the year.  They will get schooling there and their performance training all in one spot.

I definitely want to check that place out.

I also missed the second speaker, John Spurlock, the assistant strength coach for Kentucky.  He talked about Olympic weightlifting in a group setting.  Even though I wasn’t there, I firmly believe in the Olympic lifts and have no doubt that it was a good presentation.

The third speaker was Ron McKeefery, the head strength coach for Tennessee.  His topic was basically discussing the entire speed and strength program for the football team.  What made me feel good was that a lot of his speed drills and philosophies were very similar to what I’m doing with my athletes.  So, I must be on the right track.

After a modified lunch, Mike Gittleson spoke.  He is the former head strength coach at the University of Michigan.  Because strength coaches travel from job to job so often they really don’t have as big of a dislike for certain schools as the fans do.  Thus, a former Michigan coach talking at an event held at OSU.

This is my second time listening to Mike and he really preaches about head and neck injury prevention.  I like what he has to say and from last year’s talk, I have incorporated some of the exercises he has suggested with some of my clients.

A roundtable discussion with all the speakers was next.  I and the 6 other speakers sat in the middle of the room and answered questions from the crowd.  It was a good 55 minutes of discussion and I even opened my mouth a couple times to answer some questions.  Always good to attempt to show you belong with experts of this caliber.

Next was Chip Morton, the head strength coach for the Cincinnati Bengals (can you believe this lineup of strength and conditioning experts???).  He brought some video of his athletes going through different drills.  It’s pretty cool seeing those professionals work.  Leon Hall, Andy Dalton, Adam Jones, and Nate Clements were among some of the athletes in the video.  I was able to pick up a few drills I will be using with my athletes soon.

Kristin Holbrook spoke before me about the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).  If you have been reading my posts for awhile, you know I’m a big believer in the FMS.  All our athletes get put through it during their assessment.  She is part of Ohio State Sports Med as a physical therapist.

Finally, there was me.  Out of the original 120 that signed up, I think there was half remaining.  I thought my speaking went fine, but I don’t know if I necessarily knocked it out of the park.  While I was up there, I cut out a lot of the extra fluff that I thought I would talk about.  Basically, it’s because I forgot those things.  Probably a good thing.

My topic was designing a speed program for the high school sports team.  I harkened back to my days as a strength coach at Columbus Academy and put this presentation together.  Do me a favor.  If you were at the conference, please leave a comment in the box below to let me know what you thought or how I could improve it next time.

I know, some of my jokes fell flat, but I think the content was solid.  All-in-all it was a good time.  I got to revisit with some fitness professionals I hadn’t seen in awhile and OSU treated me great.  Special thanks to Tom Palumbo and Andy Britton for allowing me to speak and making the day go smooth.  I know it was a heck of a lot of work to pull that together.  Look forward to seeing everybody next year.