Unlocking Athletic Potential – Strength, Nutrition & Psychology for Basketball Performance
Introduction
In the latest episode of the Samson Strength Coach Collective, host Connor Agnew provides a deep dive into his comprehensive training approach for the Men’s Basketball team at Appalachian State University. Covering everything from strength and conditioning to nutrition, weight management, and sports psychology, this episode is packed with valuable insights for coaches, athletes, and sports professionals.
Building Strength: The Foundation of Athletic Performance
Agnew breaks down the phases of training throughout the year, starting with General Physical Preparedness (GPP) and moving into hypertrophy, strength, and power training. He emphasizes that strength is the foundation of all athletic development, ensuring that players build resilience and explosive power for competition.
The Role of Nutrition in Athlete Performance
Beyond training, nutrition plays a key role in athlete development. Agnew shares weight management strategies, the importance of daily weigh-ins, and how team education on nutrition can drastically improve players’ choices and habits. Hydration, supplementation, and body composition testing are also critical elements in maximizing performance and recovery.
Sports Psychology & Team Culture: The X-Factor in Success
One of the most overlooked aspects of athletic performance is sports psychology. Agnew discusses the power of mental training, breathing techniques, and relationship-building in developing a winning team culture. He stresses that coaches must be present in practice and games, building trust with athletes to foster consistency and success.
Key Takeaways
• GPP is crucial for acclimating athletes before hypertrophy and strength phases.
• Strength training is the backbone of long-term performance.
• Nutrition and hydration are game-changers for energy levels and recovery.
• Body composition testing helps identify potential injury risks.
• Sports psychology techniques enhance mental focus and resilience.
• Building relationships with athletes strengthens team culture and trust.
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Connor Agnew :
What’s going on Samson Strength Coach collective listeners? As we mentioned in the intro, I will be discussing everything that I do with our men’s basketball program here at Appalachian State. Again, this is not going to be earth shattering. I’m not being a very good salesman right now with my pitch of explaining why you should listen to it, but I do think it can give you a couple of ideas and I think it can kind of hopefully inspire you a little bit. It’s been on my mind recently as I reflect upon our summer training and exactly what we want to get out of it.
I think about what we want to do to kind of level it up for next year, right? And so I spent a lot of time reflecting on it and I thought, you know, it’d only be fair to kind of share exactly what we do with the team. I think sometimes you can see coaches can be hesitant to do that. And I don’t think that’s very fair, right? You know, they’ll share it with their interns or GAs, but at the end of the day, the only way that everybody else can kind of get like quality ideas is if they share it. And obviously there’s a lot of articles, a lot of posts, a lot of social media things out there, but it’s…
hard to kind of find somebody break down exactly what they do and what they do as an all encompassing kind of program. And actually this is just a side note as a pet peeve, like nothing bothers me more than when people say, Hey man, I’m going to break down exactly what we do in a talk, like at a conference. then they don’t really give any details whatsoever. And they say information that we all know, which I may be describing what I’m about to do. I hopefully that’s not the case.
But I think we start with the easiest thing, right? And the lowest hanging fruit, which is our programming. If you are familiar with linear periodization, you’re familiar with me. Okay. Again, this is probably going to be the most basic part of the talk. This will probably be the time where you’re not going to hear anything revolutionary, but I think it’s only important. I think it’s only fair, sorry, to say that I should discuss what we do for our programming. So.
Connor Agnew :
When I look at the basketball year, I look at when we first start our off-season workouts, which is April. Hopefully we play basketball all the way through March. I would love to do that, right? That’d be very cool. But at the same time, we typically, no matter what the result is, get a couple of weeks off and typically start our training in April. And so with our training starting in April, again, we hit the GPP phase. So general physical preparedness, a ton of different movements, exposing these athletes to different workouts. One of the things that
I really like to try to do is basically show them different things that they can do. Take them swimming, go for hikes, right? Basically a completely different demand than what they’re used to from basketball. And then within our weight room space, it’s really just going to be a ton of time spent on a lot of volume, hitting as many movements as possible very quickly. And so there’s an article in T Nation that I give to my interns every single year. And it’s literally GPP programming.
I think it’s incredibly valuable because it talks about exactly what you want to see out of your movements. An open chain versus closed chain, gives you a full checklist of what to do. I highly recommend checking it out. But it’s very simple what we do. We hit as many movements as possible. We essentially try to do everything. And we try to get their bodies acclimated to the weight room and get them used to working out again. One of the things that I really love within this segment is carries.
I think carries are extremely beneficial. We’ll hit farmers, suitcase, waiters, partner carries. Maybe it’s the former wrestler in me, but I think they’re incredibly beneficial. I think they can really help out with your athletes, especially just reintroducing them to the weight room movements. Now we go into May. May is one of those times where I emphasize with our athletes, really don’t worry that much about May. Why do I say that? It’s because our athletes are home for May. When they go home,
Let’s be real. Let’s have a real talk moment here. How many of our athletes are actually doing our packets that we send home with them? I put them on a programming software where I can see exactly how many workouts they’re uploading and whether they’re just writing in numbers and saying that they got it done for the day or not. Realistically, I’d say probably a third of your athletes actually do the workouts. A third of them are moderately consistent with workouts. get a couple.
Connor Agnew :
workouts in per week, but not the full packet. And then a of them just don’t do it at all. It reminds me of the Travis Kelsey, or sorry, Rob Gronkowski actually, when they were doing COVID workouts and he just wore like six different shirts of him. He filmed himself doing workouts and wore a bunch of different shirts and sent it into the straight staff and was like, yeah, look, I did it on completely different days. The clouds were in the same position and everything, right? Everything looked the exact same except for this colored shirts that he wore. So.
Maybe not the smartest idea, but again, I think it is important to emphasize that I don’t really worry about me a ton. And it gives them a break for me too. I can be demanding as a coach and I can ask a lot. So when they have an opportunity to kind of get a break for me, I think that’s always good. And for me, a break from them too. But then we look into June when our athletes returned and then we obviously hit our hypertrophy one. And so again, this is very, very basic linear training, hypertrophy one and hypertrophy two for our July phase.
within these hypertrophy phases, the basic thing that I really focus on in June is hypertrophy one, July is hypertrophy two. June would be our dumbbell movement compound movement. So dumbbell bench press, dumbbell overhead press, goblet squats, whatever you prefer, doesn’t really matter to me the most. then going into July, progressing to an actual barbell movement. the reason I explain it to our interns as I just prefer.
working on the dumbbell, a little bit more range of motion with them, a little bit less stability as there would be with the barbell. And then in July, obviously we have a little bit more intensity because we’re able to load up the bars just a little bit more. So very simple stuff. This will really truly be like the true meathead four by eight, three by 15, three by 12 kind of timeframe. Why I spend two months directly in hypertrophy is actually related exactly to what our head coach kind of prefers. He’s very big on the body transformations. And I think
That’s something that people don’t talk about a ton on their programming. And I would like to hear a couple more people mention it. Obviously, as a strength coach, you’re the dictator of success for your athletes from a physical standpoint. But you do have to make your head coach happy. And you do have to make sure that you’re giving exactly what the coaches want to see out of your program to their athletes and finding an agreement with what you want to see out of your program too. And I mean, I’ve mentioned many times.
Connor Agnew :
My first ever book was Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding. So if I have to hit hypertrophy phases back to back, oh, poor me. I mean, seriously, I love it. So nothing better than getting a pump in, but our coach is very, very big on body transformation. So that’s why we spend a ton of time within our hypertrophy there. And then we look into August and this is our base strength phase. So I’ve mentioned it previously, but we went down to Wichita Falls, Texas to certify for starting strength. And I did speak about my experience where I got absolutely demolished.
by the starting strength gym and that’s okay. Maybe a better coach and I’m excited to go down. I’m actually going down in three weeks again, which I’m a little bit nervous about. But I implemented the full starting strength program for the first time within kind of our August to September timeframe and I fell in love with it. You know, as a basic, basic scheme so you can understand it would be a three by five squat, three by five bench or overhead press and then one by five deadlift. I mean, it’s incredibly simple.
But what I love about it is even with our fifth year seniors will still go through this strength phase, but we’ll talk about where it deviates in the future programming. But one, I just believe I am a big believer in strength as the driver of all things. I do think you have to train other qualities, but I do think strength is the base. And so the stronger you are, the easier it is going to be for you to be more powerful or be faster. It’s just a true belief for myself. Now, somebody may disagree with me.
Some people way smarter may disagree with me as well too, but I’ve just seen good results from it in the past with my programming. So obviously I’m a big believer in the base strength. So why not spend a lot of time with just progressive overload? And so we’ll literally have our athletes come in three days per week will be the starting strength. And then on our fourth day, we get four days per week in the off season with the athletes. Our fourth day will be kind of like a pump arm farm.
you know, try to kind of keep it something fun like Muscle Beach or a lot, what a lot of strength coaches typically do with their hypertrophy work as well. And so I keep that phase for everybody going from August to September. And again, it’s three by five squat, three by five bench press or press alternating, and then one by five deadlift. And then it basically just goes five pounds per workout. And then if you can’t keep going up five pounds in each lift per work workout, excuse me, if you can’t keep going up five pounds for
Connor Agnew :
lift in each workout, then it becomes five pounds per week that you make the jump. Again, one of the things I really like about this is your athletes just literally see themselves getting stronger. It’s very simple. They know that if they did on Monday, three by five back squat at 225. On Wednesday, they did three by five at 230. Then on Friday, they did three by five at 235 that they’re getting stronger. It helps them buy into the program a little bit.
And then it’s hard. Like once you start to get to the end of your novice program, it’s very difficult. It’s mentally taxing. It sucks. As everybody here who lives knows, like you go under the bar for a heavy set. I hate squats more than anything. This is my time to talk about this as a personal effort. I hate squats. Like I hate getting underneath the bar. I hate when I know it’s going to be a heavy set of five and I know I can do the five reps, but it’s just going to be an absolute grind to get it done. And I think it does just…
help the athletes a little bit with that toughness aspect of just being consistent every day and coming into training, which is something that we ask our athletes to do all the time. And so that’s our August and September time frame. And then in October is where we really start to try to differentiate. And so for our more advanced athletes, so people who are fifth year seniors, somebody who’s been at a high quality program for the past couple of years, especially if I know their strength coach, I know what they’ve done, they’ll typically
bucket into the triphasic phase that we do. And so obviously three weeks of eccentrics, three weeks of isometrics, three weeks of concentric work for them. And our younger athletes who I just don’t believe have had that training age yet, just have not had consistent high quality training, will continue on with the starting strength program. And I was nervous about this, if I can be open and candid about this. I was nervous about it. I was like, am I doing enough for our athletes? Am I doing what is right?
Am I creating a different stimulus enough? In my opinion, like I think it just worked. Like these guys just got a lot stronger and it just makes me feel that much more confident. Okay, next year we can really advance in their training. Now a realistic conversation as well, if you want to play devil’s advocate, because that’s the most fun part of programming, which is just constantly talking back and forth to yourself and deciding what you want to do, what you don’t want to do is in my realm, you you could have somebody transfer out after a year.
Connor Agnew :
And so maybe they need to peak as much as possible and they need to be at their athletic peak. But for me, I still love the long-term athletic development. I think it still helps the athlete no matter what. I’ve never really regretted spending more time and strength for a younger athlete than trying to progress them quickly and pushing them into something like Triphasic when I just felt like it wasn’t necessary for what their specific needs were at the time. And so that continues for October and December. And so for, again, our novice athletes, go, I mean, at this point we’ve gone four straight months.
of the starting strength program, which some of you may gasp and guffaw at me and say, I can’t believe that you have barely any variance within your program for these athletes for four months, but we ran it for the first full time this past year and I fell in love with it. And I think our athletes truly enjoyed it as well too. Now, side note, this has actually come up and this is one of the biggest questions I get about the starting strength aspect is, are you okay with the low bar squatting? I’ll be honest, previously,
I was a front squat guy. I was a big believer in front squat. I still use front squats. It’s not like you can’t ever use that tool again. But one of the biggest complaints I would get is knee pain and lower back pain. And obviously we would do things to help the athlete warm up better, right? Or work on their mechanics to make sure their technique is good. But it was consistent across my years of using front squat. Those two kinds of complaints. And we switched to low bar back squat for these athletes who are typically super long femurs.
they already kind of squat in a more hip hinge way. And I had almost zero complaints about knee pain or back pain. And these are from the same guys who did this program with the front squats that we did previously. And so for me, it was kind of a good indicator that I think the low bar back squat fits a little bit better for what I like to do than a front squat. Again, we’ve had great coaches on in the past who I know do something completely different, but one of the biggest things that I like seeing and what I…
think is important about strength and conditioning is coaching what you like to. Like I felt a reinvigoration for my coaching this year. I felt like I was more excited to come in and really focus on the details of our lifting. And if you heard my episodes about me reflecting upon the past couple of years, like technique was a really big one for me, making sure that technique was elite, not just good. And so I think that forced me to do it. And I appreciate that about the started strength program. Now we get into January.
Connor Agnew :
And then this is where we start lifting two days per week and this is our strength power split. So we’ll hit a heavy day on Mondays. Our Sunbelt play is Thursday, Saturday typically. And so we’ll hit a heavy day on Mondays and then more of a power day on Tuesdays. And then any athletes who want to come in and lift extra, we obviously can do a couple extra things within that timeframe. for me, I love hitting the heavy days on Mondays and then the power split on Tuesdays.
Our guys consistently know what they’re going to get. They’re not going to see a drop off in strength because we’re still hitting that strength work. Maybe only one time per week, but I think it’s beneficial for them. And they know, I’m coming in on Mondays. Okay, we’re going to squat heavy. We’re going to bench or press heavy and we’re going to deadlift a little bit. And again, I mean, look, I hate saying stuff like this, right? Knock on wood and you can literally hear me do it here. But the previous two years within
basketball, we have had zero practices missed due to non-contact injuries and zero games missed. And so for me, that’s a really exciting stat. Now let’s talk about the other piece of it, right? We can say we can prevent injuries as much as possible, but we all know that the biggest volume that the athlete faces is a practice volume. And our coach, our head coach does an amazing job of keeping their bodies fresh in season. So that’s obviously the biggest piece to me, but I do think another really big piece is that we spend a lot of time in the strength bucket.
And I think it really helps our athletes. I think it really helps them feel better throughout the season. have, you know, our team this year, if you want to hear the stat, is actually 300th in bench minutes. So there’s fatigue that we’re dealing with, but I check on these guys and see how their bodies are doing at times where you typically think they’d be super banged up. They say they feel good. Now, are they lying to me? Because they want a CA as they know me to feel good, possibly. But I do check in a lot and I really just try to have open conversations with them. I’ve seen good results from it.
And then our power days is very simple things. It might be like a clean pole, squat jumps, very simple power stuff, speed presses. It almost kind of fits into the conjugate bucket a little bit, but I wouldn’t really call it that because I conjugate trains a lot harder than we do. And then February is the exact same split. The only difference that we’ll see in February is for our high minute guys, we will limit the range of motion within February. So we’ll do things like pin squats, clean pulls from blocks.
Connor Agnew :
The only thing that we don’t really limit range of motion a ton on is our bench press. We’ll do a foam roller bench press, like simple things that we can keep our load heavy. And then we’re also not just trying to help them not be as sore as possible. And then another good thing that we’ve added in this year that I think was helpful from our dear friend, John Bloom, once again, I can’t go one single episode without mentioning John Bloom, was overcoming isometrics as well too, just for a little bit of an analgesic effect. And I think that’s been beneficial too.
And then once we hit March, it’s tapered peak. mean, I think people can kind of get a little too crazy with the tapering aspect and trying to peak at the right times and everything, right? Like, let’s be a hundred percent realistic here within the Sunbelt. It’s a one bid league. think last year was kind of our one year that we could really argue that, you know, this is the year that we can step out and cause for context, AppState, the team I work for.
was 27 and five, I think. And then James Madison, who won the tournament, I think almost hit 30 wins, if I’m correct. If there was a year for the Sun Belt to have two teams get picked for the NCAA tournament, it was last year and it didn’t happen. And so we know for a fact that we have to peak 100 % for our conference tournament or else our season is going to be done. And we don’t get to go to the NCAA tournament, which is the ultimate goal for our team every year. So we’re peaking for this week, no matter what. And it just has to be in our physical.
preparedness, our best physical preparedness, not general physical preparedness, but best physical preparedness. And so with that taper and peak, you know, it’s obviously just a progressive deload of intensity and volume and increasing the speed of the reps as well too. I mean, really nothing complicated there. I promise you that that’s as simple as it gets. And yeah, that’s, that’s essentially our programming. You know, again, at the end of this talk, I’ll offer this up again, but if anybody wants to reach out to me and ask anything that we do, if you’re a younger coach and want to
really sit down and look at the program and what I do, I no problem opening it up to you and helping you see exactly what we do. Because again, I believe in transparency. I believe in being open about our methods because I think it can only help the field. And trust me, there’s better programming out there too. So it’s not like I’m giving away this secret sauce that I figured out. Okay, and then one of the big things that we hit is also our mobility. So…
Connor Agnew :
I almost don’t want to speak about this quite yet. The one thing I will mention is that I’m available pretty much at any time for athletes. So some pre-practice mobility, some prehab, if you will, just some things to help them feel more comfortable for practice and then afterwards as well too. And then we’ll kind of touch on a little bit more of the mobility aspect a little bit after that. So the biggest thing that I emphasize outside of the actual programming aspect is going to be our nutrition.
Obviously, the corny joke that I give to our recruits all the time is I love nutrition so much that I got married to it. It’s ridiculous, right? But my fiance is the director of nutrition here at Appalachian State. And so it’s really opened my eyes to how important it is and how much of a difference it can make. And one of the big things that I mentioned in our programming aspect is that body transformations are actually what are the most important for our head coach to see in the off season. And I’ve got news for you. You can have the best program in the world, but if your nutrition is not where it needs to be.
you are absolutely not going to see the transformation gains that you need to see as well. And so to talk through our whole nutrition program, I want to talk about what we do in the off season, in season, and then I want to actually talk through my monthly budget and what I’ve asked for from our coach as well. And so in the off season, it is mandatory for any new player, actually it’s mandatory for every player. Once we come back in June is to meet with our dietitian one-on-one. In those dietitian meetings, it really varies based off of what they have previously met with Tess about whether it
It be a check-in meeting from previous year, or it’s a full diagnostic look at exactly what they eat, what they do, what they need to accomplish for the upcoming year and how they’re gonna actually meet their goals. One of the biggest things that we see in this meeting 100 % is our weight gain guys are not eating enough meals and our weight loss guys are snacking too much. I mean, it’s simple stuff, but.
It’s really, really nice. I think it’s really beneficial. And I think if there’s anything that I would invest money into a program for, it would be on the nutrition side. And so I know it’s not realistic, but one thing that I can almost universally say is that if you do not have a dietician at your school, you should talk to your head coach and see if there’s any room in your sport budget to even just have team talks.
Connor Agnew :
and just a registered dietitian who can come in and actually dive deep into the nitty gritty of nutrition with your athletes because it makes the world of difference. And a story I love to share is there was a girl on the women’s basketball team a couple years ago who hated breakfast, like never ate breakfast. And then every day would just be like, yeah, I’m dizzy in practice. And it’s like, well, I wonder why, you know. And it was interesting for me. And this kind of showed me the power of having other sports professionals.
uh, within your team as well, because no matter how many times I told her eat breakfast, how many different ways I tried to say it, she just would not listen to me. She had one meeting with Tess all of sudden the next day, uh, she’s eating. mean, the biggest breakfast I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And then reports back within a week to test that she feels way better at practice and her dizziness is solved and she has way more energy. Uh, again, it’s, it’s a shocker, right? And you can’t believe that this person feels so much better, right? Just kidding. But, uh, at the same time, having somebody else who’s a registered dietitian in
who can actually hammer home the points in the importance of nutrition, I think makes a big difference. So again, can you talk with your sport coach about meeting with a dietitian, just having team talks, having team consultations, having somebody come in? I know Christina Chu, a former guest on the podcast, does team talks and everything as well. And so I think at the end of the day, it’s something that’s very valuable to the program. Now we talk about the biotransformations and I think it’s unrealistic to…
not be open here and talk about how we approach weight loss, weight gain, and weight maintain. And I think the easiest way that we’ve done it is just by having fun and putting guys into different groups. And so we have a Jets group, which you can guess is probably our weight gain guys. We have a Bombers group, which is our weight maintain guys. And then we have a Tanks group, which is our weight loss guys. And so we do this with our guys. I was a little bit concerned about doing it upfront because
Well, let’s be real. The last thing I wanted to do would be like, just yell out after the group, okay, weight gain guys, come get your snacks, right? Or weight loss guys, we got extra cardio, right? So I wanted to give a label to it that embodied something powerful that they could still like. And I stole this idea from Craig Fitzgerald in my time at Tennessee. This is how he split up his position groups. But it was really well received by our guys. And what was cool was we ended up doing kind of like promotions, right? So somebody was a jet. We would announce to the whole group,
Connor Agnew :
Once they hit their weight goals, hey, he’s a bomber. We never talked about specific numbers. I think it is very important that you can’t emphasize the number a ton. You have to emphasize the actual performance a lot more. But it does go pretty hand in hand. If we have an undersized guard and we see them gain quality weight, their performance is typically going to go up as well too. If they’re a really hard weight gainer, I’m not going to worry a ton about them hitting their specific goals because we don’t want to build a bad relationship with food.
or eating or anything related to nutrition. But at the same time, if we see good performance, then it makes it a little bit easier on my end. But again, most of the time when somebody meets their weight goals, they’re typically a better athlete because of it. We don’t just put it out there just so we can say, hey, we had 18 guys total across the team put on 75 pounds of muscle mass this summer. Those stats are cool when I think they’re fun, but it is all based around performance.
And so how we track those is also daily weigh-ins. Now, the weigh-in aspect, I think you have to be very considerate of it as a strength coach, right? You can’t have somebody step on a scale and go, damn, you know, like we don’t operate it like that. I try to keep it very neutral. If somebody’s high on the day, I’ll say, okay, just be aware of it, right? Or if they’re low on the day, just be aware of it. That means that typically they have to kind of go back to those habits that they talked about with tests and understanding exactly what they need to get done. And so we’ll do daily weigh-ins.
And then we also do weigh out post-practice as well too. So that allows us to see our hydration exactly what the athletes need to rehydrate. And then on our weigh-ins, we do a weekly weigh-in. And so that is your average weight across the board for the week. And what’s really cool is we’ve been able to kind of break some of the stigma of weight gain and weight loss with our athletes too, right?
Some guys fluctuate a ton. We have some guys who come in five pounds heavier, five pounds lighter on a daily basis, right? Because they’re super big sweaters. They’re maybe pretty inconsistent eaters, right? And last thing I want them to do is freak out and just become super concerned about a number on a scale, right? So we can show them progress throughout the week by showing their actual, or sorry, week to week by showing them their average weekly weigh-ins. And so one of the cool things that I’ve noticed with the weigh-ins is our guys will come in and just ask like,
Connor Agnew :
Okay, hey, what’s my weekly average? Like what does that put me out for my weekly average? Because they know that it’s not just a one day basis that makes or breaks your entire day. And so it’s a sensitive subject, but again, like why not talk about it, right? Because I think it is appropriate what we do. And I think we try to base it around really high quality nutrition facts and try to make sure that it’s in a way that’s comfortable for the athletes to understand exactly how to improve their performance through their nutritional and body transformation goals.
And so they have an initial meeting with Tess and then they have a mandatory follow-up meeting a month later. And then after that, it’s really up to them how much they want to meet with Tess. I may encourage some guys to go meet with Tess a little bit more, especially if I see their eating habits on the road. But at the end of the day, I don’t want to force something on them that this is just going to be a waste of time. And again, risk the relationship with the nutrition or with food. And then we do team talks, like I mentioned previously. A lot of those things could be talks about creatine, breaking down myths about creatine.
Another one that we did is the hydration talk and exactly how to track our hydration. And then another one was alcohol and how alcohol can affect athletes, right? I think it’s a lot of times we can kind of assume a strength coaches is like, yeah, these guys are just getting, you know, messed up on the weekends and they’re drinking as much as possible. So, you know, like it’s part of college and it’s like, well, sometimes they just don’t know how much that actually affects them. I was just talking to my fiance last night is if you drink, you know, as a male, if you drink.
five straight days in a row, your testosterone plummets. I mean, and that’s across the board, right? But if you go five straight days, it greatly affects your testosterone and your hormone balance. And so why not give this information to the athletes too? And just hopefully they make a little bit better decisions. I’m not saying that you’re going to get guys who now sleep in, drink their sleepy time tea at 9 PM, like I do, and go to bed on a Saturday night. But at the same time, maybe we can just give them a little bit more education, a little bit more information.
And then we hit our end season. So the biggest emphasis that we have in season is hydration. I think it’s very easy. And one of the things I’ve noticed too with the winter sport is that as soon as it becomes cold, the guys start hydrating way less. And so one of the things we actually do is a hydration test with them. And so it’s a urine specific gravity test. We do it for our high minute players, but it shows them exactly how much they need to hydrate. We have players who play a ton of minutes and think that they hydrate well.
Connor Agnew :
And then on the USG, they read 0.27, which is like severely dehydrated, right? And if that’s the case, then it helps them get better. And it helps them understand their hydration habits better. And you can always see it season through season is that every time they start testing again and again, their hydration numbers get better because they’re learning through this process too. Extra meals are a big piece of what we do as well. And so I get $250 per month from our sport coach for a budget for extra snacks.
Our jet, our weight gain guys will typically stay back with me and have an extra snack. I try to make it as choiceful as possible. It’s almost like, I’d love to try to be as clean as possible with our nutrition, but if I’m going to force a guy to eat chicken jerky all the time, he’s going to be pretty miserable. We’ll throw in a pack of gushers every once in a while.
I mean, it’s okay. It’s okay. These guys are going to be all right if they have a pack of Gushris because they got news for you. They’re doing it outside of this as well. And so our $250 per month goes to budget for extra snacks, road snacks, bring things that we bring on the road, try to bring high quality foods for them as well too. And for our supplements. And so our supplementation is what we provide for them is turmeric slash curcumin and omegas to help with their inflammation. This is in season. Off season, you know,
I try to spend as much money as possible on extra food in season. I believe these supplements can come really in handy. Now is that the best scheme? Probably not. They could probably continue going on, but you know, if we have $250 per month, I think we try to do the best that we can with our little bit of money that we have, which I don’t mean to say little because that’s actually a pretty significant amount. And some people have zero monthly nutrition budget. So I completely understand and I sympathize with that.
What they encourage the athletes to take a ton is creatine. Obviously, we can’t provide that as training conditioning coaches due to NCAA guidelines, but we encourage athletes to have as much creatine as possible. I think that’s actually the worst way to say that, right? Consistently take creatine, so five grams per day. We don’t undergo a loading phase with our creatine. And then our post-game hydration and supplementation is a big deal for us as well, too. So immediately having a liquid IV for them. Typically, that’s when we supplement their creatine at the end of the day.
Connor Agnew :
And then we’ll give them a protein shake as well for the protein synthesis for over the night time. Because sometimes their post-game meals could just be a pizza, right? There’s not a ton of protein in it. So just trying to maximize those proteins for them as well. One other thing that I did not mention earlier that we do every year is also a DEXA scan for athletes as well. I use this as a red flag tester for new athletes where they first come in just to find out, let’s say, hey, they have a crazy asymmetry between right arm and left arm, which for me can be a precursor to injury.
or they have very low bone mineral density, right? So just an initial red flag testing. When I talked to recruits, I almost compared to the sickle cell trait testing that they do for every NCAA athlete as well too. And then obviously a body composition aspect as well. Now, it’s interesting because there’s going to be a little bit of pushback on the body composition testing. They’re not going to love.
hearing that they’re actually 16 % body fat or 15 or 14 or whatever it may be when they thought they were at 4%. And I usually explain to them that, know, bodybuilders who are stage ready are at 4 % and they can typically feel the bones in their feet touch the floor when they walk around without shoes on. And so it’s a very different percentage that you believe that you’re seeing. But obviously the goal is to decrease our…
body fat percentage. think, I think again, that is in comparison to athletic performance. There’s been studies done on it with counter movement jumps that show that lower body fat percentage does indicate a higher level of performance. And just trying to take care of their bodies as much as possible too. And so those Dexta testing will do it when they initially get on campus and then we’ll do a follow-up testing right before we start season and then another testing in the spring as well. Now Dexta scans are obviously not available for everybody. I think you, you know,
I love the Dexter scan because you don’t use it just for the body fat percentage testing. It’s not just body composition and just being as concerned as possible about it. But you can use it again as a red flag tester for a lot of things that can be precursors to injuries. And then also show them like, man, you had a 10 % asymmetry between your right arm, left arm. And then after our training, you’re at 2%. I think those numbers are cool. And I think our athletes can kind of buy into those a little bit too.
Connor Agnew :
And so that’s our nutrition. Again, I’m open to talking about anything that we have, that we do. Please reach out to me. I would love to dive deeper into it with anybody who needs it. one, I’m sorry, actually one last thing that I want to throw in with our nutrition. One of the biggest things that we do for our DEXA scanning testing is also make sure that they sign a waiver. If they’re not comfortable with me seeing their information, then obviously I can’t see their information, right? So they will sign a waiver. They will basically sign off rights and they have to check.
off one by one, support coaches, strength coaches, athletic trainers, medical professionals, right? And so if they want to provide that information to me, then we see it. If they don’t, then I mean, it’s, know, tough break for me, right? Like it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, the athletes have to feel comfortable about what we’re doing. They have to feel like we have their best interests at heart and we’re not going to use their body fat percentage against them. Like that stuff sucks. And it makes you not believe and buy into the process.
And then we talk about sports psych. So obviously my master’s degree is in sports psych. And so this is almost exactly like nutrition, right? So like I have somewhat of a background in it. I can have some information from it that I can dispel to the athletes, but I’m not the expert in it. I’m not a registered dietitian and I’m not a certified mental performance consultant. So we really try to refer out to our sports psychologists on campus a ton. And then mainly the thing that I do is breathing techniques. And so we’ll do our deep breathing. I think box breathing is really beneficial. So inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four.
The number one way I get guys to buy into deep breathing is, this is something that the Navy SEALs do, right? Before they go on their missions and they’re like, that’s pretty bad. And so it just gets them a little bit excited about it. But it’s funny because when you first start deep breathing, you’ll kind of hear moans and groans a little bit. And then when you progress in with the deep breathing as a recovery technique for you athletes, all of a you hear, okay, well, heck yeah. Like I’m excited about the actual deep breathing today. Someone, of our players joked the other day, this is best part of his day.
Right? But the reason I focus on breathing so much and the reason I think it’s really beneficial is one, it’s easy to teach. And then two, like seriously, how much time do athletes get on a daily basis for themselves? They’re constantly being told what to do. They’re constantly being told where to be. They’re constantly being told how to act. Can you just give them five minutes to themselves to just focus on themselves and just like honestly give themselves a break from anything. And so one of the big things we focus on is the mindset when you’re breathing.
Connor Agnew :
making sure you’re not focusing on anything outside of your breathing. You’re not thinking about your girlfriend or boyfriend. You’re not thinking about a test you have coming up or man, I had a bad practice today and just really trying to give these athletes a break from what they’re focusing on and just give them time for themselves, which has proven invaluable in my experience. And then the rest of the sports psych stuff, again, refer out. But then I also leave it up to the athlete as well too. If they want to come in and they want to talk about visualization exercises, I’m comfortable with leading them through a couple exercises.
Obviously there’s no actual consulting for me, but it’s things that we learned in my master’s program that I think it’d be beneficial to. But again, the breathing for me is the easiest thing and is very most applicable for all coaches. It’s something that we do for our recovery, but then it’s also something that can be done very simply at the end of each lift. It can be done as a refocusing technique. I love it and I think it can be very beneficial. Now we talk about the intangibles. It’s kind of like extra small things.
that I do with the team. And so I promise you, I’m not trying to toot my own horn with this, right? But we actually had our sports psych on campus come in and talk with us right before we left for the conference tournament. And he said, what is your one thing? And he asked the coaches to do this reflection as well too. Like, what is your one thing that has always been an advantage for you in your career? Like, what is the one thing that’s always said, okay, well, at least I have this, I can hang my head on this. And this falls in the intangible. I promise I’m getting somewhere with this, right?
I believe it’s my willingness to kind of do whatever it takes if it helps the team. Now, that obviously leaves you open to kind of getting overworked a little bit. And I’ll be honest, I’m tired. It’s the end of the season, right? But at the same time, what I tell my athletes in the off season all the time is why not give it everything that you’ve got? So that way, even if the end result isn’t what you wanted, you know that you gave it everything you had and there’s nothing left on the table. And so for me, I think that’s my strength. I think it’s something that
has allowed me to progress in my career. And I think it’s something that has allowed me to have a lot of enjoyment in my career too, and kind of take ownership of things that happen. And it’s easy to kind of just say, we won because we had really talented players, we had great coaches too, but you’re part of the solution as well. They wouldn’t pay you if you weren’t somebody who was helping out the program. And so why not be willing to do anything to help the program? As a brief example, mean, a really small example is this week, we had the conference tournament and
Connor Agnew :
The Sun Belt Conference Tournament is insane by the way. It’s four straight games in four days. If you’re the sixth seed like we are. And so I’m thinking about four games in four days. Obviously we’re planning on winning the championship and I’m like, I just would love to bring every recovery tool with me possible because it would make me feel better and make me feel like I really did everything I needed to do. Am I going to be able to bring that on the plane? Absolutely not. Let me bring in my 110 pound body temper roller.
And hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks for lugging that out of the cargo of the plane, right? Heck no. And so I knew that wasn’t gonna be an option. So I drove the distance to Pensacola and it’s like, again, I promise you, I’m not trying to make myself sound like this amazing grinder and like, look at me, but I do think that those things make a difference. And the reason I think they make a difference is because of the 1%. And this is a talk that Dan Worth at Tennessee gave me one day. And he just talked about how in rowing,
He noticed that within the past three big 12 championships, because they were big 12 conference at the time, were one by one second or less. And if that’s the case, like that’s a 1 % difference. And so what is something that you can provide that can be a 1 % difference for the team? What if it’s something that was something that you can do on a daily basis that can be 1 % different, right? Can your training be just 1 % better? And can that mean the difference in winning or losing games? Like all our losses this year have come in.
very, very close fashion. It typically comes down to one possession. Now, if you check the schedule, you’re gonna see a couple of games where we lost by six or eight, right? But we started fouling, okay? And that makes a big difference. So when it comes down to one possession, like why not try to do everything that you can to help the team? And I think it makes a difference. think it, again, allows you to have a little bit more ownership of what you do with your program. And I think it just allows you to enjoy it a little bit more. Like I think it just allows you to get ingrained in the process a little bit more too.
It is a double edged sword. have to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself, making sure that you’re not overworked. But at the same time, I like it because I feel like it helps me feel good about what I do at the end of the day and it relieves some anxiety about it. you know, did I do everything I could? Like I really think I did. And so if that’s the case, then the chips fall where they may. Another thing is going to film and practice is this is not a luxury for every strength coach. So please don’t.
Connor Agnew :
you know, if you’ve been listening to me and you’re like Connor, my situation is completely different. I understand. But if you have the opportunity to do it, I really think you should. Uh, and there’s two reasons for it. The first is, uh, just spending more time around the team. And this goes for traveling as well too. Um, just spending more time around the team and getting to build better relationships. Uh, my first year at app state, I remember I showed up for an eight 30 PM walkthrough that they had, right? And the coach was like, Hey man, you don’t have to be here. And I was like, no, I want to be here. Right. And then.
One of the players, it was kind of the, the clash clown, if you will. And I walked into the film room and he was like, CA, I love your dedication. Right. And like everybody laughs and everything, but you know, behind every joke is a little bit of truth as well too. Right. And so I think it, it just allows your athletes to see that you’re a little bit more commit. It’s not fair to say, let me preface that. It helps build a relationship with your athletes, right? If you’re not going to practice, it doesn’t mean you’re not committed. You probably get a ton of other teams and a ton of other things going on. So I apologize for phrasing it that way, but.
I do think it helps your athletes build a relationship with you. The more they see you, the easier it is to have a relationship as well too. And then the second piece is it really informs my programming a lot of the time too. I know exactly what our practice is now after being here at AppState for three years will look like in October versus January versus February versus June. I know what those things look like so that I can really know when to hammer it home in the weight room and when to do things that I really want to do and when there’s maybe a time to let off.
And then as we all know, every practice doesn’t go exactly as it is on the practice plan. Sometimes you end early and maybe you can just get a little bit more out of that session that day. And sometimes, which is probably a little bit more the majority of times, it goes a little bit longer, maybe a couple extra sprints for rant. And maybe there’s a couple of things that I can take off with in the weight room as well too. And so it’s a very time consuming process. Again, I know this is not a luxury for everybody, but I do think it is one of those intangible things that can kind of help with the program. And that’s my spiel.
That’s everything I’ve got. Again, it’s a quick hitters of what we do. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it as well too, but I just think it makes sense to kind of share everything with you as a listener. You’ve been listening to me as the host for over like a year and a half now, I think, which is awesome. And I appreciate you still listening, if you stuck with me all the way. But again, it’s something that is…
Connor Agnew :
Only fair to talk about and only fair to detail exactly what I do. And if you have tips and tricks for me, I would love to hear it too, right? One of the big things is I keep going to my career is just trying to get better at all times. So if there’s something that you want to share with me, I’d love to hear it as well too. And if there’s something that I can share with you, I’d love to give that information to you. So I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you taking the time out your day to listen to me ramble on a little bit. It’s always fun for me and I appreciate you being a listener consistently. So thank you.
