The 29/1
Official Podcast of the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program. 29 Sports, One Team. The show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther Sports Community. Bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join Rodney Vellinga and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as they dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
The 29/1
Explosive, Powerful, Fast Athletes: with Frank Lerchen & Kyle McKenzie
Athlete Performance Coordinator Frank Lerchen and Peak Performance Instructor Kyle McKenzie join us on The 29/1, providing a comprehensive look at the innovative approaches they've introduced to elevate West Ottawa’s Athletic program.
The Panther Strength program and Peak Performance Class are revolutionary approaches that focus on intentional training techniques, with PR bell celebrations being a highlight. These celebrations foster a sense of accomplishment and motivation among the athletes, contributing to a thriving athletic environment. The energy in the weight room is palpable, creating an atmosphere where students are eager to push their limits and achieve their personal bests.
The Litvinov workout, for instance, is an intense combination of heavy lifting followed by sprints, inspired by legendary Russian hammer thrower Sergei Litvinov. This workout is designed to build explosive power and speed, crucial for dynamic athletic performance.
Middle school strength conditioning is another cornerstone of the Panther Strength program, laying the foundation for future success. This early exposure helps students develop proper movement patterns and build a solid base of strength, preparing them for the more advanced training they will encounter in high school. The long-term benefits of this approach are significant, as students are better prepared and more advanced by the time they reach high school.
The duo also tackle common misconceptions about in-season lifting. They emphasize that proper lifting protocols can maintain performance without risking fatigue or injury. The stoplight algorithm, for instance, is a tailored approach that adjusts the intensity of workouts based on whether an athlete has a game or practice. This individualized approach ensures that athletes can continue to train effectively while minimizing the risk of overtraining.
In summary, this episode provides a comprehensive look at the innovative approaches of Frank Lerchen and Kyle McKenzie. Their dedication to creating a thriving athletic environment at West Ottawa is evident in every aspect of their work. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of athletic performance and the holistic development of student-athletes.
This episode was recorded on September 26, 2024.
Podcasts now dropping at 5pm every Sunday evening for that late weekend chill, or listen Monday AM during that morning commute or workout. Please like, follow, subscribe, or leave a review. Even share with someone who might like to listen. Thanks for taking the time to get to know each other a little bit better. The people who make West Ottawa Athletics what it is. Go WO!
Special thanks to Laura Veldhof Photography.
My grandpa Gordon. He had a boat and it got passed down to me and I fixed it up and this summer I unlocked the Grand River a little bit in Grand Rapids and started catching some smallmouth up there in enemy territory. The Rockford rowing team is my nemesis.
Speaker 3:They won't stop going past me while I'm trying to cast.
Speaker 1:Oh that's great If the Rockford rowing team could please chill out while I'm casting.
Speaker 4:that would be great, Thanks.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, this is Rodney Valinga with the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program and you're listening to the 29.1 Podcast 29 sports, one team the show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches. You're listening to the 29.1 Podcast 29 sports, one team the show that brings you into the lives of student-athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther sports community, bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join myself and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as we dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better. Hey everybody, each other a little bit better. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the 29.1 podcast. It's a beautiful day on the lakeshore and we are more than halfway through the fall sports season, and today we sit down with neither coach nor player, but with two key pieces in West Ottawa athletics. They are not your typical coaches as they don't run practice or coach teams on sidelines, but, as you say, bill, they interact with more students than anyone in our program.
Speaker 5:Yeah, today we sit down with West Ottawa athlete performance coordinator, Frank Lurchin and peak performance instructor Kyle McKenzie to talk about the Panther Strength program and what it looks like before, during and after school.
Speaker 3:If you have an image in your head about what a weight room is, it's time to start over. It's 2024, and boy, things have changed. Intention, purpose and lifelong impact are a few things that come to mind.
Speaker 5:Frank Lurchin, kyle McKenzie coming up next on the 29.1 Podcast. Let's get it.
Speaker 3:That's the sound you guys hear every day, almost, don't you, ringing the bell PRs, baby 1% better, it's awesome, it's a great energy up there Just tuning in. You recognize these voices. We got two young, fit, energetic dudes in here today.
Speaker 5:Thanks, rodney, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hadn't gotten to Bill. Bill was my young, energetic dude. Who is it? Who might it be?
Speaker 1:We've got Frank Lurchin and Coach McKenzie, or, as the Pete kids called me last year, big Mac. I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 3:Thanks for coming on the podcast guys. We've got Frank Lurchin and we got Kyle McKenzie Kyle McKenzie.
Speaker 5:Frank, you've obviously been a part of the West Ottawa community for a long time. Kind of really, I guess. Cut your teeth as far as educational athletics is concerned, here at WELL.
Speaker 2:Quite literally.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and then Kyle, you're a relatively newcomer in year two here with us. Talk to us, maybe, about what you've been able to observe in that brief two year time period of coming in and being a part of the West Ottawa community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I, when I first came in, I mean just the, the kids and the culture that I saw a lot of really good kids but kind of raw, like the first day I remember of peak, just kind of going, okay, so this class like kind of show me how it's ran, type thing, kind of let the kids kind of show me the way. And as I got my feet more wet, so to speak, or more sturdy, and started to get comfortable, I realized that there's a lot of things that we could be doing better and just kind of seeing that evolve and always give a lot of credit to the seniors of last year because they could have been coach killers and they could have really, like, rebelled against what we were trying to do, but instead they went the opposite direction and they really sunk their teeth in and bought in and kind of set the path that we're on right now.
Speaker 3:And your position then is you're a physical wellness teacher here correct. Yeah, and also peak performance. And then, Frank, you are the athlete performance coordinator which is APC.
Speaker 2:You're not an MPC. Not an mpc? No, you would be nowhere. Atc and apc.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So and then basically, frank, you've been around here a long time, getting to know you a little bit over the years. We always see people at west ottawa from a distance right. So even like kenzie, like we we I saw you at Unified Basketball and I know your face a little bit, but even today it's like, hey, it's nice to meet you. So you don't always know everybody. Let's talk about you guys, just a little bit about who you are. Frank, you've had a lot go on in the last two years. I was talking to your wife, jamie, just yesterday and in the last two years you've gotten married, you've bought a house and you've had a baby.
Speaker 2:Yes, and took on this new role Right this new role life-changing, Frank. It's every aspect. It's been a fun challenge, you know, and I'm always about a growth mindset and I think all of these things have kind of helped shape me. And about a growth mindset, and I think all of these things have kind of helped shape me and I'll just continue to drive me to to be a better man, to be a better person, be a better husband, be a better coach.
Speaker 3:And in your daughter's name is Viviana. There was a thing you posted online where there's like three new babies in your extended family, right? Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have, uh, my daughter Viviana, who's nine weeks old, and then my nephew, who's also my godson, leo, is coming up on a year now. His birthday is right around the corner, so that's super exciting. And then we have, so it's just the two of them that are newborn, okay, there's one that's a little older, though, right. Yep, and we got Ava, our 13-year-old daughter, and then my niece, who is gosh she's got to be about 10 now. So that's Cadence. That's my oldest brother's daughter.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay, because there was some picture I had seen online where you guys were holding three babies together. Yeah, yeah, my cousin, my cousin.
Speaker 2:Chelsea and her husband Joe just had a baby girl, Poppy, so it'll be really cool to see Poppy and Vivi and Leo all kind of grow up together.
Speaker 3:I love the short forms of the names, it just happens so quick. We will be calling her Viviana. Vivi, I mean, it happens so fast. And then, jamie, of course, is your wife right? I didn't know this, but I didn't know. She works at the Department of Motor Vehicles, she does.
Speaker 5:Yes, she's the best out of everyone.
Speaker 2:She can tell vehicles. She does. Yes, she's the best out of everyone.
Speaker 3:She's she could tell you all kinds of stories. I thought I thought you had it tough. I'm like, oh man, but I was telling her last night. I'm like the department of motor vehicles, the department of motor vehicles has really picked it up over the last I don't know five to ten years or so. I mean, what's your guys experience? It's I go in there, I go online and get my appointment set. Walk in five minutes, I'm out, yeah, no, yeah, I think they've.
Speaker 2:They've heard a lot of good feedback for the most part.
Speaker 1:I think there's some not kenzie uh, the detroit and grand rapids area is not the same well, there you go, it's different all right, my experience has not been. Uh, very good all right.
Speaker 3:Well, you got to start going to the one here in holland because it's it's pretty great. And then we can talk about Kyle a little bit too. Kyle, whenever I've talked to students about you, they always say they have a nice relationship with you and all that kind of stuff. You don't have a baby, but you do have two dogs, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, how did you find that out?
Speaker 3:I have sources. Tell me about your dogs man.
Speaker 1:So I've got a. I won't say the species, it's a long-haired chihuahua. Her name is Grace. Long story short, it was my ex-girlfriend's dog, but when we split I got the dog and then an English Bulldog-Boston Terrier mix called Sequoia, and those are my two crazy dogs. That, yeah, they keep me busy at home.
Speaker 3:Does two dogs equal one baby?
Speaker 5:No no.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not. My older brother just had his second and like yeah, dogs aren't kids, by any means no.
Speaker 5:And you have a dog dog. Yeah, we have Hendrix the golden retriever at home. Who's awesome. I got him out for a walk this morning. Best thing, best part of my day, every day is getting home, no matter how late it is. He's ready to greet me, tail wagging, just want some scratches behind his ears.
Speaker 1:How many great ideas have you had while walking your dog A lot, yeah same. It's like all of a sudden an idea will just come from just walking for like a mile or so and you just start to develop the idea as you're walking and then you just hope that you remember it. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 5:Yeah that that today is a very busy day for me, Um, as far as athletics is concerned, and to be able to get out this morning and get that walk and you guys, as folks who you know, careers revolve around the fitness industry just getting out and getting some energy expended, was it's really awesome for kind of my mental clarity for the day.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's the best. My mental clarity for the day, oh, it's the best. There's nights that I go home and I am drained, tired, but I can't wait to just like see Viviana and hope that she's in a mood to get in the stroller and get on and go for a walk. Yeah, and it's just just nice, and she loves the outdoors and getting fresh air.
Speaker 3:So and you guys are both outdoorsman, right, you both like to fish, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, what do?
Speaker 3:you guys do in the summer. For that, where do you fish around here?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I try to get out when I can. Summers are pretty busy too, but going out on the big lake doing some, you know, just downrigger fishing fish for salmon, steelhead, that sort of thing. So a little more, but I've been skunked a lot frequently.
Speaker 5:Really.
Speaker 2:So looking to get back on the board.
Speaker 1:I'd like to do some small game fishing too, but I know kyle's the small game bass pro, how are you really uh? So yeah, I got my, uh, my grandpa gordon uh, he had a boat and it was got passed down to me and I fixed it up and, uh, I take it this. This summer I unlocked the, the grand river, a little bit in Grand Rapids and started catching some smallmouth up there in enemy territory. The Rockford rowing team is my nemesis. They won't stop going past me, while I'm trying to cast.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great If the Rockford rowing team could please chill out while I'm casting.
Speaker 3:That would be great Thanks. Well, let's get into this with what you guys do professionally. One thing I want to do first. I was thinking about this, and this is really more for the listeners that are out there If you grew up in the 80s or you grew up in the 90s, you have a vision in your head of what a weight room is. So we just said the word weight room and you just thought of something.
Speaker 3:I want you to take that image and just get rid of it right now, because when we grew up, in that time we're going to go there and we're going to do our bench. We're going to do this. It's going to be slow, there's going to be a lot of time in between sets, all that stuff. That is not what is going on in the year 2024. And I'm so excited to talk to you guys about what you're doing. You guys do a lot of similar things, but they're different. Can you explain just like real briefly, what your contribution is, and then maybe, kenzie, you can do yours, just like in?
Speaker 2:a quick little minute. Yeah, it'll be difficult to kind of wrap it all into a little nutshell, but I think just the strength conditioning world has evolved so much.
Speaker 3:And you work with teams right. They come in after school.
Speaker 2:Yep Work with a good majority of our teams and programs are pretty bought in um. So you know just the evolution of your traditional. You know bfs program that I had in high school and I know a lot of what does that?
Speaker 3:mean bfs, so you're bigger, faster, stronger I thought I needed to edit that out 10 5 3 yep, yep.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think science has told us so much and shown us so much over the years as far as, uh, you know, validated ways to train to build explosive, powerful, fast athletes who move really well, yeah, I think is a big thing. You know, like the numbers are important, getting guys and girls stronger is important, uh, but if it doesn't transfer out to the field, the court, the ice, wherever they play, um, you know, then it's just you're just a strong body. You know who, who can't really move, can't do dynamic things, can't be an athlete, uh, and I always say we're not power lifters, right, we're not going out to compete for a one rep max, uh, on a on a stage. We're going out to cut, jump, twist, pivot, turn and do it repetitively with high outputs. So, you know, that's kind of the model and the backing of our training is to move really well, right, and then get athletes to be explosive, to be powerful, to be fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we'll get into this in a minute. But you're generally then working with teams. Teams are coming in. They're seeing you with the Panther strength, right, it's more of a team concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, and we've got, you know, a good, good chunk of teams that do their individualized team sessions.
Speaker 2:Uh, some of those will overlap with other teams, which is really cool. And we get multiple smaller teams, uh, that we have the space for and they're training together. Let's say you've got a, you know, a girl's team and a boy's team training side by side. That's awesome Just for the culture and the camaraderie of, uh, you know, 29 sports, one team all working together, um, and and that's a lot of fun. And then we've got classes that overlap. You've got multi sport athletes in there is that more what kenzie's doing, then?
Speaker 3:yep, like the performance with mckenzie and newton yep okay. So, kenzie, I was uh in your stuff today, but but tell the audience really what peak performance is.
Speaker 1:So peak performance is a high-level strength and conditioning class but we try to make it not just the strength and conditioning. We try to do culture building, team building Right, because it's designed to be athletes. We have advanced strength and conditioning for non-athletes that still want to push themselves in the weight room, but this is more athletes that have goals of competing for our varsity teams at a high level or beyond and really are bought into pushing themselves in the weight room. So that's kind of the overview on what PEAK is is our highest level strength and conditioning that we have at West Ottawa, and to get in there is a difficult task.
Speaker 3:To even get in the classes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's prerequisites and a lot of requirements and you've got to put in the work and do the work in order to stay and continue to take it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we're what year? Three or four of peak performance, I think is a class offering here.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 5:And ultimately it came out of. We've got all of these hours during the course of a school day that we have the opportunity to get kids into the weight room so that then they don't have to worry about after school getting into lift if they're in season or even out of season. Right, they've got their lift part is taken care of during the class day, and I think that's what ultimately will make us a stronger athletic program is when we start to have a real large percentage of our student athletes lifting during the school day. Um, and really lightening the load in the weight room after school. Frank, because I know right now I mean maybe just touch base on what teams you're seeing through on a daily basis. I look at the schedule every week and I'm blown away.
Speaker 2:We're seeing a majority of our in-season, off-season athletes after school um, some before school those were, you know, willing and able to get up early. Uh, come in for a couple of morning sessions Monday and Wednesday. But I mean, we've got girls volleyball coming through after school. We've got, uh, you know, baseball, softball training off season. We some football players that are not in the strength classes coming through. We've got hockey, cheer, cross country boys and girls swim tennis is doing their thing, yep tennis is is going over at south as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're soccer boys soccer coming through. You know I'm probably missing couple, but we've got a ton of teams, middle school programs, going over at the at Mac Bay continuing to build things out at Harbor lights. With that space nearing it's, you know it's opening, grand opening if you will. So yeah, I mean it's, it's exciting. The number of teams and kids that we have bought in our challenge right now is just a lot of. It is in that afterschool slot, you know, and trying to get more, more kids through during the day.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so space and time starts to become the constraints of what we're doing, which makes me really excited as an athletic director to know that we have so many kids that want to get in that we actually have to start thinking about space right for those kids. And I think getting those rooms down at the middle school are going to be huge for us absolutely and just the, the structure.
Speaker 2:You know I've kyle and I have talked about this too, but what the kids get out of being in the class versus the after school, you're just able to dive another layer, another. You know. In class you have a little more structure, you have a little bit more time so we're able to go into. You have off days built in, right, they're in there five days a week, you know, and you can do what you want on those recovery days, whereas after school I may see a team twice a week and it's 30 minutes, 35 minutes. It's like bang, bang, bang. We got to get in, get warmed up, get our bodies prepped, get our lift in and we got to go, we got to get to practice. So there's not a lot of extra time to dive into the science of RPR and some of these other concepts.
Speaker 5:We're just asking kids to you know, trust what we're giving them and go all in with it, but yeah, yeah, the weight room itself is a really nice space, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3:So again, like just thinking about what weight rooms are like and what they, it's a nice big open space, like a big rectangle really. You got windows to the west so there's lots of natural light in there. It's really nice that way. And then there's 14 set racks across the outside right, Yep, so those are cool. A lot of plyo in the middle.
Speaker 2:Yep, so we kind of keep our boxes and things stored in the middle of the trap bars in the middle yeah, and then a lot of free weights, a lot of free weights, a lot of kettlebells, a lot of bands.
Speaker 3:So it's not like the kind of an old looking gym either.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a little bit different yeah, we've got other implements, you know know, medicine balls thrown in there, hurdles, mini hurdles, lasers, jump mats, so a lot of different tools. And I think some of the cool things with the you know, the lasers and the jump mats is giving kids measurables, you know, giving kids that instant feedback of okay, I just ran a sprint and there's my time, there's my speed, you know, now I have a marker to compete against. So you just see those outputs stay high. You know, you see kids striving to compete against a number, compete against each other.
Speaker 2:With the jump mats they can hop on, take two seconds, jump they get a number. Boom, there's my vertical, go plug it in. And again, now they have. We can run leaderboards, we can see where we're at, we can hit PR, celebrate those PRs, ring the bell. So it's been really cool to, you know, have these, these measurables. You know, and kind of taking a philosophy in the strength conditioning world from coach Tony Hollers, is record, rank and publish right. So record data, rank it, publish it, put it out there for the kids to see and then they can kind of connect with us and and do what they need to do to help reach their goals.
Speaker 5:And you've, you've seen the, the turnover really in the weight room. Rodney, you kind of alluded to kind of the spaces it sets. Now, three years ago it did not look that way when I first arrived at west ottawa. That room was full of hammer strength um, lots of machines, um I didn't know it changed that much yeah, so it was really kind of following.
Speaker 5:It was a post code. It was kind of during covid, because we had the sports year just kind of ended right, so I had budget that was already set to be spent. So I was able to work with our finance office and say, hey, here's something that we could put this towards and really reworked that weight room. We got rid of all of kind of the machine stuff, and maybe you guys want to talk about-.
Speaker 3:That was one of the first things I noticed. There's no machines in there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, maybe you guys want to just talk about that real quick. Why free weights over kind of those machines?
Speaker 2:not that all those machines were horrible machines, you know they could be useful at the right time and place, but they were just, uh, space eaters, you know, and really isolated muscle groups. So we're trying to get kids to understand athletic performance and, I think, synergistic movements, you know, getting the entire body to work together, knowing that when I go, uh, to try to jump in and make a turn and catch a ball, um, I'm not just working one muscle right, I'm asking my legs to explode, my core to turn and rotate and my shoulders to remain stable as I'm getting ready to take a hit, you know, or some sort of contact. So, you know, I think, applying that functional training piece, you know, as far as different strength conditioning philosophies, powerlifting, bodybuilding, functional training, that's been the evolution of bringing in just the racks and getting rid of some of those isolated machines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's helped me with. The kids will know the first couple days of class is usually when Coach McKenzie takes his feet out. It's usually when we're doing squats takes his feet out. And it's usually when we're doing squats because I like to teach it from the ground up and, like, you got 26 muscles in your feet and they gotta, they gotta work and I was someone that through genetics had two hip surgeries but really, like went to a power lifting conference in columbus, oh, and the first day I mean you had guys that could squat 800. And the first day we're talking about how to flex your feet and like build your arch and how that start that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how to like flex your feet, build the arch and how that kind of locks in your knee stability and your hips stability and working with free weights. Then you have to engage your core a lot more. What Frank was talking about, just all the different muscle groups, how to create tension in some of the muscles that we don't even see or you might not even know that are in your body. That creates stability. So injury prevention is big with that as well, as when you build those muscles up now, you can start safely moving a good amount of weight and really building towards that. So with machines it's not bad. But usually you see that with hypertrophy bodybuilding when the goal is just how big can I get this one muscle, and that doesn't really translate to sport that well.
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't really at all. You guys are very performance-based in what you're doing. I love the fact that you explain a lot of detail on these things. I also want people to know that our students are really taking this knowledge that you're talking about and they're applying it to what they're doing. I was at peak performance today and you guys were running first of all. What's that one with the sled?
Speaker 1:It's called a Lipvinov. Coach Frank didn't create it, but it was his idea to put it in. He came to me last year and said hey, this is something I've been trying to put in for a while, let's do it, and I'm never going to say no. If it fails I'll raise my hand and say that's on me. But it didn't. By the end of the year, the kids you know took a vote and were like keep that in. Yeah, that was really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're, we're gonna. What we're gonna do now is we're gonna do some audio. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna listen to uh, senior senior evan alec, who is a football player and also is lacrosse. I believe they were doing a sprints where I, uh, what are they called? You called them something earlier today, frank. The sprint itself, the 10-yard flies, the 10-yard flies. I was calling them the laser race.
Speaker 2:Frank, I saw this laser race up earlier, but anyways.
Speaker 3:So these kids are just this is on the track above the gym and they basically get prepped to run. They get this full sprint out and they're timing themselves miles per hour. This is Evan Alec, who was a team leader and was running that today. Let's listen to him and what he had to say about that 20.1.
Speaker 4:The ankle stiffness is just when your toe strikes the ground. The back of your ankle shouldn't 18.6, shouldn't really Today 20.3, 18.3. Not anymore, thanks, 18.4.
Speaker 2:You were close, yeah, but my ankle lied.
Speaker 4:No, it isn't. When I sprained my ankle last lacrosse season and they do a lot of ankle work to increase the stiffness in your ankle 19.7. Hey boy, when you strike the ground with your toes, you want your ankle to be stiff so you can just pop right off. You don't want your ankles to sink to the ground. So a lot of people when they run they're really flat like that, when in reality you want to be striking with your toes super hard and have really good ankle stiffness, especially at the start when you're starting like that, like it's really key to not sink in and have good stiffness to pop out. But that's, that's just been the number one thing that's helped me, uh, get faster speed. So that's what I got ankle stiffness wise.
Speaker 5:I see the pride in both of your faces hearing that kid.
Speaker 1:That a boy, Evan. Yeah, shouts out to Evan.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I see the pride in both of your faces as he's talking through that so clearly. Not only are your students listening right, but they're absorbing this information and then they're able to come back and actually explain it to somebody who's walking in for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that clip is gold, just Evan's explanation of it. And a really cool thing just listen to the audio is you can hear the force that kids are putting into the ground.
Speaker 5:Yes, you can.
Speaker 2:We talk about rate of force development into the ground and you hear those hard ground contacts. Kids are starting to pick up on the things that we're coaching them on and teaching them.
Speaker 3:And they're dialed in like people are getting ready and they're giving it everything they have coming through that on the laser race it's so fun to be part of.
Speaker 2:We're gonna have to change it on team builder laser race.
Speaker 3:All right there's another thing we're gonna go to now too, that the uh, the litvin off. Let's explain exactly what this is again, just so we know what's happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's see if we can give you the best rendition of it. So I first came across these at a conference strength conference with legendary strength conditioning coach Dan John. This was in Niles, michigan, when I was still in AT Always been super into the strength conditioning world and I kind of learned about Litvinov's a little bit. Um, sergei Lipvinov is a hammer thrower, russian hammer thrower, which is kind of where the exercise originated from. It's technically, I believe, it's like a squat or a hinge pattern, so let's say, a front squat or an overhead squat, um, or a, you know, a deadlift or some sort of kettlebell swing variation followed immediately by an explosive sprint. Um, so Sergey Litvinov was actually, do you know, like 405 pound front squat for eight reps and run a 400 meter sprint in about 70, 75 seconds.
Speaker 5:What a contrast right.
Speaker 2:And 405 pounds, eight reps is insane itself, let alone follow that by a 400 meter sprint, rest, fully, repeat two more times. Um, so we've kind of taken sounds like a Monday, right.
Speaker 2:It's. It's a workout in itself. Just, you know, pairing two movements like that, um, you know, hitting it for for three sets. If you need more than that, uh, typically there's something missing. You know, either the intensity wasn't quite there, um, you know, hitting it for three sets If you need more than that, typically there's something missing. You know, either the intensity wasn't quite there, you know, we didn't have enough load on the bar, you know, or we rested for far too long.
Speaker 2:So we've kind of put a little variation on it and doing some sled pulls, you know, connected with different mentors of mine, I know Coach Shermonte over at BC is a big mentor and he has done some different things with Lipnov. So just kind of trying to learn and get ideas from other coaches that have been doing this for far longer than I have, and I think we've had some some good success with it and good fun with it. You know, last year we installed it for the first time and kids responded really well to it. We saw some drastic improvements in our 10 yard fly times and I would say we kind of use it more or less as a conditioning piece Now we don't do a ton of conditioning just because time is always a constraint.
Speaker 2:But these are a cool way to tap into that. You know, aerobic capacity a little bit and build our lactic threshold but still keep that explosive power movement.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, let's take a moment and listen to a couple. This is two students competing side by side doing the Lipman off. In the first one you'll hear Frank offering encouragement, and in the second one you'll hear Kenzie. Let's have a listen.
Speaker 4:Three, two, one, go, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, go Go. Only easy day was yesterday Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. All right, three, two, one go, good, keep it up. Keep it up, drop it and go. Drop it and go high intent, go catch him, catch him, catch him, good, keep going. Jonah, keep going, drop it and go High intent, go Catch him, catch him, catch him, good, keep going, jonah, keep going.
Speaker 3:This is really high energy stuff that's going on on the track up at the top. It's really fun to watch. I spoke with Sebastian Gramich, a junior and a baseball player here at West Ottawa. This is when he finished one and this is what he had to say.
Speaker 4:This is pretty hard. I feel like you've got your quads running. You've got your quads going and then, as soon as you try to take off, you've got to regain your stability, Get up where you start sprinting all the way around the clock.
Speaker 3:This is pretty hard For somebody that never did any of that stuff. These kids are being hooked up to these sleds. They're at a what?
Speaker 2:probably a 45-degree angle or more to start, so they're just leaning forward, they're digging those feet into the ground, pulling that sled and popping out into a sprint. Yeah, just trying to apply some principles of sprinting mechanics and just working on shin angles and those first couple. As soon as you release the straps, you've got to catch yourself from falling uh, similar to a falling start on a on some sprint drills. So you got to put some force into the ground on that first step and and work on that quick acceleration to get your hips through cool yeah, um, yeah, not to get like too sciencey, but another go ahead, get too sciencey.
Speaker 3:Well, you like doing two signs, don't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, I like to flex that.
Speaker 1:I wasn't the greatest student but I know the word post-activation potentiation, which pretty much means, like I first learned about it, a guy was doing like a set of three on a sumo deadlift with 600 pounds. But then when you would do after that a set of 25, pounds, but then when you would do after that a set of 25, the load that he could do after was much higher than like when he was building up. Because your muscles are potentiated or they're ready to go for those heavy loads. So like after they're done with this grueling, like it's like 10 or 15 yards of just dragging this heavy sled once. Once you drop that weight, now your muscles like the science that's going on in your body like the first couple steps feel like you're in quicksand. But then all of a sudden you just like take off and your legs feel like butter and they should like. We ran a couple last year just to have some fun and they were like your legs get this weird, like, like tingling, like just ready, but you feel so explosive afterwards it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they hit you a little bit different and I think we've gotten that response from kids in a positive way.
Speaker 5:You thought that walk with your dog was I'm going to have to start getting in the weight vest, getting some squats in before I get Hendrix out on the trail. Pick up the pace.
Speaker 1:Get your post-activation potentiation yeah.
Speaker 3:Some of the fun part. You guys are very gracious I could go into some of these last couple days. One thing I noticed a lot is you do focus on letting them take over. You want it to be whether it's player-led or student-led. You give them a lot of responsibility. Can you speak? Maybe Kenzie can speak to that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so one of the changes that we did second semester last year and I got this from another baseball coach she was like the first female MLB like minor league coach and she ran like a strength class.
Speaker 1:when she was like the first female MLB like minor league coach and, um, she ran like a strength class when she was with the Astros with, uh, some players and basically put them into teams which is what you do yep, there's this like complex scoring system, like even a lot of them were coming from countries where she would say, like throwing garbage on the ground was like a norm, so like that would lose points for your team because that's not part of our culture. So created like a scoring system with that, put them into teams and each team has a team leader. And a lot of times, like this year, we were kind of having a rough lift so I just pulled the team leaders and said, hey, this is what we're looking for. Go back and address your team and get them on point. A lot of times I'll try to address it through the team leader just to build that player-led or student-led part of athletics.
Speaker 1:Like you know, every good team's, if it's only coming from the coach, then it's. We're just not a very good team and so just across the board, any dynasty and stuff, you see that you have those team um people that are going to go ahead and take the realm or take the reins before, uh, the coach even has to say anything of like no, we're drawing the line. This is not how we do this here. We don't do that type of stuff Like let's get to use Sam Williams' quote get teed up. He was a leader for us last year. Sam's awesome.
Speaker 5:He'd always be like I got to get my team teed up, tightened up like in line Frank you talk a lot about intent, right, and coming into the room and there's, you know we've raised the bar right. It used to be that you could come into the weight room and you could have any kind of footwear on new there's. There's a certain standard now to everything the way we organize our racks. But talk to us a little bit about intent and what that really means to you as kind of the overseer of the strength program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I believe there's many different variables that will change what we get out of a lift, right, you know, as far as the volume, the weight on the bar, the intensity of the weight.
Speaker 2:Sleep, yep Time, rest time, you know so, all these different variables that can change what a workout will do to our body, all these different variables that can change what a workout will do to our body. But if the intent isn't there understanding whether we're trying to move a bar fast, understanding whether we're trying to go max velocity, sprint, whether we're trying to go absolute strength and we're not as worried about the bar speed we just want to see you move some weight right and move it within the standard without breaking form. That's knowing the intent. So I think you know, think, when we get things really dialed in, really the coach's job at that point becomes because it is so player-driven and student-driven they've got all these little details down. Now our job becomes explain to them what the intent is if we've changed, because it could be the slightest little thing, right, we could be doing one exercise, we could be doing squats and we might have four different intents on it based on the time of year.
Speaker 2:So if a student athlete can understand what the intent is during in-season versus maybe an off-season, they're going to tap into the stimulus that we hope they get versus crushing it, going too heavy, right, and then go into their coach and say their legs are shot because we lifted too much in the weight room, right, or not doing enough weight and really not getting anything out of the weight room. Because there's a fine line there and that's getting again dialed in really specifically to the science, which is you know what we do and Team Builder helps a ton with that. On the programming, there's so much work that goes in behind the scenes to where we just tell them trust the program, apply the intent that we're giving you for that exercise or that plyometric drill. We might have three different intents for the same thing, but it's yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer that intent drives results.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and control what you can control as a student athlete. When you walk in there every day, right athlete, when you walk in there every day, right, there's a lot of things that are outside of our scope as far as things as we can control as young student athletes. I might not be the strongest kid in there. I might have all of this stuff that I'm coming into the room with every day. You know home life, how I've eaten over the course of a day, but if I walk in there with a great attitude and I'm dialed in and ready to go, the world can be my oyster, so to speak. Right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we hope kids leave there feeling rejuvenated, feeling, you know, like better about themselves, they've accomplished something for the day, you know, especially if they got early morning class. You know you've got a couple intro classes early in the morning, kyle, and uh, you know they could get one of the hardest things of their day done, you know, and that's a really rewarding feeling for students to walk out of there and just the endorphins and all the you know. Again we could get into the science of what movement.
Speaker 3:There's so many paths to go down with this stuff.
Speaker 2:But, you know it releases so many good hormones for their brains and their bodies to go about the rest of their day in a positive mood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean anybody who's listening when we work out. We all know what that feels like. Right, you're having a bad day, go for a run, go work out, whatever, do it in the morning we feel better, and it's intentionally being done here at West Ottawa and that's amazing. One thing, kyle, that I thought was really cool going on your Instagram for West Ottawa Peak is you have the championship belt.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Can you talk about that based on the teams, how they get that? Give us some detail on that? This is really, really a fun part of it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Should have brought the belt in, but yeah, I got on the internet and found a trophy-like type website.
Speaker 3:That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I spent like 90 bucks on that thing.
Speaker 3:It's like a heavyweight title belt really yeah.
Speaker 1:It was the youth model. I couldn't afford the big one. But yeah, that's the whole teams thing is there's a grading scale from the moment that tardy bell rings, like if you're tardy then that's not acceptable. We're losing points. But there's also positive points and some leeway in there and like one of them's effort and the thing that I'm finding the hardest with this group is like it's redefining what effort is, because what they give now, like our lift yesterday, would have been like a world class lift for that first peak class that I ran. And that's on me as the coach, not on the kids. I just I was new to it, I hadn't run a weight room, it's normal man, right, when you build something from scratch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'll take ownership of the fact that You're too hard on yourself, man. No, no, dude, you're loved around here. You're doing great.
Speaker 1:No, around here you're doing great, I know I get it, but, like we, we had good lifts. But like, yes, yesterday I left there, like it gives me energy for the rest of the day. So at the end of the week, if you have the most amount of points, you get the belt and you get to hang the belt at your rack for the entire next week. Um, I've been letting the, the winners, uh, refuel first and the refuel station some added things you get, yeah, little perks now no one's.
Speaker 1:No one's done it yet, but they could bring their phones up and leave them at the podium, because we can't be on our phones during class. But they could, you know, take pictures with the belt for their own Instagram or send it to me to put on the Instagram. And that was something that Frank did yesterday, not to go on a tangent, but like let the students do a student takeover and they got his phone and it was just cool to see what that team was capturing throughout the room, because us as coaches, we see stuff, but it was cool to see what the students were picking up on and what they thought was cool and what they would want to broadcast to anyone that sees it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, in order to win the belt, you got to be pretty locked in all week. And the unfortunate part, just like sports, you can be locked in all week and still lose, and that's a bummer, but it should make you hungry for the next time around. Not everyone wins. You can play a perfect game and still lose.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and the reward program has really become part of Panther strength and kind of what we do. We recognize a couple of student athletes. Each month there's t-shirts going out. I saw, was it girls cross country? Yeah, the whole team got outfitted with the shirts cause they're so dialed in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that that group is awesome. Yep, um, you know the. You know the shirts have been one part of it where I was actually having some of our female athletes give me some votes on you know colors that they would get excited about for speed bracelets. So we've been trying to do some speed bracelets. You know, the PR bell, just finding creative ways to reward kids for their, their hard work. You know, within the scope of what we can do, you know, in a school day, but, yeah, just continuing to come up with those creative things.
Speaker 2:The belt has been awesome, I know, you know, mr Newton, coach Newton did the Terminator thing with the football program. Just different, different fun ways to get kids engaged. And we talk about competing as one of our core values. Competing, you know, bringing passion and energy and everything we do, and I think these are just other ways to get kids to have fun competing. Have fun competing with all the little things you know, like who's going to clean up their rack the fastest, who's going to grab an empty box out of the refuel station and throw it away for us? You know little things like that.
Speaker 3:Right, right For sure. So, kyle, you had mentioned that you know you can do all this stuff and still lose, right? One thing I want you know just people in general to know is that this is a variable of athletics. So you have natural ability, you have coaching, you have team chemistry. This seems to me that is just one thing that we're going to get really better at, and it's one variable. Yeah, it's not everything, but it's going to. Whoever that athlete is, it's going to enhance them, right, whatever their abilities are.
Speaker 2:It's going to enhance their abilities.
Speaker 3:It's hopefully going to keep them away from injury. So this is something that West Auto is doing that can really make a difference in the long term, and I think the cool thing about it is and you guys know this too like we're not going back, like this is here now. Yeah, isn't that cool.
Speaker 2:We're only going to keep growing, you know, and I think the more kids get dialed into this, it just continues to replicate itself in other areas of their life.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I actually was. I just talked to my dad last night and we were just kind of he always likes to know kind of what's going on at West Ottawa, and we were actually talking about the strength program and being able to push it down into the middle school now and we're not going to see the fruits of that labor for another couple of years. And for us as coaches and people that are involved in it, we have to really wrap our minds around that. Right, right now, our kids that are seniors have been exposed to the program for three years. Think about the kid that's in sixth grade right now. Right, and he's over squatting at Mac Bay. Yeah, and where is that kid going to be six years from now, when they're a senior? In this building, where that foundation is laid in those middle school rooms. And and think of what you guys, as coaches, are going to be able to do with them once they get here at the high school. That is like exciting to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something that I'm excited about as well of like some of those foundational pieces. That it's not that we don't want to coach them, but like Frank said earlier. You know time is a constraint but, like Frank said earlier, time is a constraint. So if you don't have to necessarily talk about proper squat stance or how to breathe and brace your core, some of these fundamental things that need to happen we can jump into much more quickly I guess is the way to say it of like some of the science-y stuff or some of the little intricate things of how to tension your body when lifting, but you can make that adjustment in a day with someone that already has the foundation. It's like, hey, try this cue and like they get it. But like if you're spending a month trying to teach someone how to lift, that can eat up a good chunk of the semester and sometimes you might not see them second semester.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think just kind of tying into you know, the vision, long-term vision of the program is, you know, to be recognized as one of the premier strength conditioning programs in West Michigan and I think to help get there it ultimately I look at other programs in the state it's got to start at the middle school level, you know, in terms of just movement patterns and understanding safety terminology, reading a program, just those those basic things, so that when they get to the high school we're not having to go over all those fundamentals. Now we're talking bar speed, we're talking velocity-based training, we're talking, you know, heavier loads and recovery and how to go about those things, and just diving deeper into the science of strength conditioning.
Speaker 3:So, frank, let's do. I wanted to finish this podcast off with things I'm hearing out in the public. So when we go and talk to parents or at sporting events and so on, we hear different things and there's a we're going going to pick like two of them maybe, so we can just kind of shatter this. So the first one is even I, as a dad last winter. I think Hudson was in your class last year then too, right, so he goes yeah, I had a good lift today. I'm like, dude, you got to play basketball tonight. Like what are you doing lifting today?
Speaker 3:So I'm a 55-year-old dad who has the mental of 1980s, 1990s lifting Now in the weight room. There's a sheets up in the weight room where there's I don't have a varsity game tomorrow or the next day, and there's a certain way you lift for that. The other one says I have a varsity game tomorrow and there's a certain thing for that. And the other one says I, I have a varsity game tomorrow, there's a certain thing for that. And the other one says I have a varsity game today. So I saw you doing that today with Emmy O'Connell Kenzie. Can you tell me? She's a volleyball player, plays varsity volleyball. What was the difference that you made her do today as opposed to a regular day with her lifting because she's playing today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so based on that protocol that Frank put up, I believe a game day would be all the sets except for the last half, the reps and then the weight as prescribed. So it's kind of tapping into what's called the minimum effective dose. So just giving them, let's go.
Speaker 3:Just giving them the MED. Right, it's going to take you long to figure that out, by the way.
Speaker 1:It's like the other day we had some kids and it was squatting. It was Hudson and his tennis partner Hugh.
Speaker 3:Irvine yeah.
Speaker 1:Hugh, yeah, and it ended up being like two sets of two. The first set's at 60% of their max, the next one was at 68. And you know, four-second, second, eccentric and it just kind of primes the muscles. It's not going to fatigue them, it's not going to cause any sort of damage to your performance, but it's giving you that what's the least amount that we can give you and still create adaptation or still at least keep the strength gains that we had in the off season, right?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, so instead of taking the whole, day off we had in the off season, right, so yeah, so, instead of taking the whole day off, which would be the old style, this is a little bit different, where it's just a little bit enough just to maintain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's never concrete, right? I mean, we call it our stoplight algorithm.
Speaker 2:This was actually an idea that Bill pitched over to me when we first got going right and there's so many good ideas out there from coaches, so you kind of find things that work within your program. And I just thought this fit perfectly, because when I first started we were having all kinds of issues with figuring out how to adapt the program for those in-season athletes and how to tell them what to do. Without making all these individual recommendations, we can just build a program that now incorporates this algorithm into it so that when a kid has a game day, we say, okay, you're a, you're a red, you're a yellow or you're a green today, based on that system, and then they can kind of just simply, you know, know the process and apply it to their really their big compound lifts. You know, any accessories we don't worry about too much. They're typically not super fatiguing. It's more or less some preventative maintenance work. Uh, but our big squat, our bench press, our deadlift, things like that yeah, it's a good.
Speaker 5:It's a good thing for parents, because I remember this I remember my high school basketball coach always saying you know, bill, why are you benching? It's it's game day. I'm like coach, my shots busted already. I got to get stronger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the other.
Speaker 2:that's the other thing that I think we touch on here is this is really applied to varsity athletes, um, you know, so not to say that our freshmen and our JV athletes are not important and their performance isn't important it certainly is, uh. But I think you know, ultimately we want to play the long-term game right and continue to develop athletes to be those high-level performing varsity athletes. And so, you know, always talking to a kid and just saying, hey, you know, are you getting a lot of minutes in the game or are we not? And those will be other variables to factor in. Okay, you've got a lot of stress on the system, you know, because you're playing a ton, you're taking a lot of contact, or you're just getting a lot of reps, or maybe we're not.
Speaker 3:We're not getting the minutes that we want right now.
Speaker 2:Let's, let's keep lifting, you know, let's keep getting strong. Game day for one person is not game day for another. Sure Yep, so kind of knowing some of those individual individualized, um you know modifications, super cool.
Speaker 5:I think that's important for parents and our student athletes to know as well. Is that this the level of programming that is happening here? It's not a one size fits all right, it is. Every kid is treated as an individual and they're going to have their own kind of individual prescription.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to, I think to, to make it the best that you want you know you have to cause. All these kids are coming from so many different backgrounds with so many different stressors on their plate. So trying to, trying to meet the kids where they're at let's do, uh, the exercise uh thing as well.
Speaker 3:This is one thing I hear out there and we talked about this the other day. Somebody was doing squats and, uh, somebody mentioned, I heard, squats are bad for you. They're bad. I'm doing the voice of the parent, apparently, but the uh the squats are bad for your knees.
Speaker 3:You, you don't want to be doing something like that. Yeah, sure, If we go back to when it was. I know I'm going back in time a lot today, but I don't know. It's my peer group, this is who I hear stuff from. Can you talk about how that's different now? Right, we're not just going there loading up the bar with way too much weight, with bad form and doing squats with no intention. Can you guys explain how that is different today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say I mean we're not prioritizing the weight over the movement right as one of the biggest things. Like we talk about form over weight or movement over maxes, and I think with the squat in particular, we've got progressions, regressions to everything we do, especially those big compound movements. So we'll start an athlete out with a goblet squat, let's say, and we're just kind of assessing their movement form. You just said goblet squat.
Speaker 2:You've got to explain that because I don't know what that is. Yeah, so a goblet squat is anything with the word goblet prefacing. It is holding a kettlebell right underneath your chin. All right, good now. Or a dumbbell, and so our goblet squats, you know, kind of. Allow us to see how a kid squats, how their knees track, what their torso is doing. Um, can they tolerate, you know, a quarter to half their body weight and perform that for 10 plus repetitions, with great form.
Speaker 3:So you're just seeing their movement early, without a lot of weight, and what they're naturally doing, oh so they're analyzing it, basically 100 and they can get stronger.
Speaker 2:I mean, we could have, we could have seniors or strongest athletes in the room doing a 100 pound goblet squat and they'll it's gonna challenge the heck out of them. So but that's, that's one of our entry-level progressions and when from there we can kind of assess you know, are they ready for a front squat? You know, are we ready to take them into a Bulgarian split squat, or we call them rear foot elevated split squats, regular split squats and then progressing into a barbell back squat. But we don't have to.
Speaker 2:I think the big thing to take away here and for parents and students to know is that we don't have to back squat all year round to get stronger in a back squat. We can get really strong on one leg and the majority of your sports are played on a single leg. You're running, you're jumping off a single leg. You know walking. Every step you take, you're on a single leg, right? So we talk a lot about just unilateral strength. Get really strong on one side, improve that balance, that stability, that coordination, and I guarantee you'll get stronger on two legs. That's taken a long time for some of our students to wrap their head around, because they just want to get a big back squat.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like the same thing in cross country running, where you have those long, long, easy runs or easy, long runs where that actually helps build speed. It's absolutely bizarre, but I mean for me as someone that's listening, I don't know it's a little bit of the same thing. You're doing some different things that are going to improve that, but it does not feel like it at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean talk to like Eliza Reynolds sticks out to me.
Speaker 2:you know we were doing some, some split squats and I think he had 265, 245 on the bar, something like that, I mean that's a heavy loaded split squat right and that's only going to enhance his ability to drive a maximal load on a double leg back squat. The other piece is that we don't use belts until we get to a certain threshold right. I'm big on and I think you know Coach McKenzie and Coach Newton would agree here like we don't need a belt until we get to a 95% load right, when we're really pushing a max set. We try to engage our intra-abdominal pressure and use our internal belt, as I like to call it. You know everybody's body has muscles all the way around the spine. So learning how to engage those from your, your six-pack abs, your rectus to your obliques, to your paraspinals, everything around the back and then brace with the pressure.
Speaker 1:So now you've got an extremely rigid spine that's not going anywhere when we load it with two, three, four, five hundred pounds yeah, and I, I'm the on the belt, like the belt doesn't do anything for you if you don't know how to create that inner abdominal pressure. I think the old school I was probably alive for that but they would just throw a belt on doing curls or whatever. Oh, it's going to protect my back. Well, no.
Speaker 3:It was kind of one of the fun things about going to the gym was putting on the belt.
Speaker 4:Bill knows this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm putting the belt on.
Speaker 5:Just to walk around in it. I was putting the belt on Just to walk around in it. I was never a belt guy.
Speaker 3:Oh, you weren't.
Speaker 5:No, you guys also wore lifting gloves too, nope. I didn't do that. Got to get those calluses built up, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think there's definitely a time and place for the belt and once they learn those core fundamentals on how to create that internal pressure, now we know how to use the belt and actually push our pressure into the belt, versus slapping the belt on and thinking it's a bandaid you know, synonymous to like a knee sleeve or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, things always change in sport. Things progress, things get better. This is one area where it really has, and it's nice to get a little bit more knowledgeable about it, because when you're not in it every day, you just don't know, like you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 5:Well and the program is still, I would say, in its infancy, right. I mean we're really three years in to building out a comprehensive strength program here. You know the fruits of that labor we may not see for another couple of years yet. Obviously we're seeing it in our kids now. I look at some of our programs. Our soccer team way more physical on the ball now because they've dedicated time to that strength and conditioning program. The resiliency I find in our, especially our female student athletes, and what they have gained in the weight room every day is immeasurable. Right, it's, it's a confidence. Those teams like rodney I think you saw the volleyball team in a lift together, the confidence and the camaraderie and the chemistry within that team is only stronger because of the work that they do. They're doing really hard things every day. Then you had all three levels up there too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, which was cool. I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that, yeah yeah, big shout out to girls volleyball, they get after it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we've got a lot of groups. You know the, the cheer team has 50, 60 girls up there when both all levels are up there together and, um, you know, putting in a lot of hard work and and continuing to evolve our, our program. You know I don't know how many dance programs are invested in the weight room the way ours is, uh, and those girls have seen some really good turnouts with their, their performance. But again, the confidence piece, just the, you know the life stuff beyond just performance. I think we get wrapped up in performance so much, but this stuff is far, far bigger than you know trying to get a kid to perform well in their sport. It's really we talk about college, career and life ready, correct, you know this is life long wellness strategies on how how to continue to stay strong and healthy mentally, physically.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, hopefully these programs will expand. They'll get better as time goes on. Let's talk about your socials real quick. We got west ottawa peak and frank champion zero three, correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these are both on instagram. If you want to keep up with what's going on with this, just follow them on instagram. They put posts up regularly. It's pretty fun to just look at once in a while. You know I'm not trying to doom scroll all the time, but if I'm gonna doom scroll, miles will be west ottawa yeah, panther strength's got a very strong twitter following.
Speaker 5:As, I'm sorry, x following um as well yep, um, and actually we got some little shout outs from the detroit tigers yeah, that was awesome overnight.
Speaker 2:I saw that cool. This is crazy yeah, baseball guys getting a lift in the other day and and had we were able to get the game up on the benq board, which is pretty cool that's great to get excited, get after it in the weight room what's this?
Speaker 3:what's the size of that screen on that tv? Uh board gosh, what is that? It's big 80 maybe it's massive, it's massive you gotta definitely use it for what you need it for, but it definitely deserves a sporting event now and again.
Speaker 2:It's not every day the Tigers are in playoff contention. So, no, it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:All right well that's been a lot of fun. This has been a lot of fun Just sitting down with you, getting to know you guys a little bit better. It's been great and we wish you all the best to year-round Awesome Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you guys for doing this. Thanks guys, All right, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Thanks for coming on 16-6.
Speaker 4:16-8. There you go, Tooth.
Speaker 3:Are you still here? If you are, you get to do something fun today. If you enjoy hearing these stories, help us out by sharing it with somebody right now. Hit that share button and text a friend, an old teammate, somebody in your life who might enjoy the listen. And if you do it, you just built community. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week 14-4.
Speaker 4:13-7.
