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Article in the post this morning

Ralphandler1

Member
Article this morning about the new strength and conditioning coach

http://www.denverpost.com/cu/ci_23524689/new-weight-coach-dave-forman-clearly-strong-hire


After reading it I actually became pretty concerned. While technically what he is saying does make some sense I get the feeling we are headed back to the days of Hawkins.... where we have a team that has a small school mentality and is undersized and under conditioned. Maybe I am reading too much into it but when guys are already saying they are frustrated cause the are not making gains in the weight room like they normally do in the spring it kinda irks me. I don't want a team that gets pushed around by Stanford or USC all the time. I don't like the injuries the buffs have suffered the last season or two either, but other schools don't seem plagued by injuries like us.... and they all have old school strength programs , not what this guy has us doing.
 
Ralphandler1 said:
Article this morning about the new strength and conditioning coach

http://www.denverpost.com/cu/ci_23524689/new-weight-coach-dave-forman-clearly-strong-hire


After reading it I actually became pretty concerned. While technically what he is saying does make some sense I get the feeling we are headed back to the days of Hawkins.... where we have a team that has a small school mentality and is undersized and under conditioned. Maybe I am reading too much into it but when guys are already saying they are frustrated cause the are not making gains in the weight room like they normally do in the spring it kinda irks me. I don't want a team that gets pushed around by Stanford or USC all the time. I don't like the injuries the buffs have suffered the last season or two either, but other schools don't seem plagued by injuries like us.... and they all have old school strength programs , not what this guy has us doing.
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I think you are reading too much into this afterall he was at Stanford before SJSU, and is the school of training he talks about most.
 
I could be..... just worries me that we have been such an undersized team the past years and now we are reverting to a lifting style that is not used many places, certainly not at the big football programs. But hey if it reduces injuries that would be a huge benefit.
 
Ralphandler1 said:
I could be..... just worries me that we have been such an undersized team the past years and now we are reverting to a lifting style that is not used many places, certainly not at the big football programs. But hey if it reduces injuries that would be a huge benefit.
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I'd argue Stanford is today a big program. That said i do get your point in the sense that traditionally guys have worked for huge off-season gains and put their bodies through a lot of stress, and perhaps that works more effectively, but for a number of schools they have depth we simply do not. Having a SR guy like Handler play all 12 games is more important to us than him being about to bench an extra 20 or 30lb
 
I think you're reading way too much into it. Coach Foreman was one of the more exciting acquisitions with this new staff, in my opinion.

Just a few weeks ago I was in town and sat down with one of the strength and training assistants. He graphed out for me what they're trying to accomplish. It starts with a vision of the end product in very specific terms. First, what are the number of reps required of a player per game? This staff wants to keep the ones in as long as possible, and build training programs to that. Next, what are the specific boundaries of mobility required (how much lateral, etc...)? Finally, how does the staff achieve that in an injury free environment? It was a pretty compelling explanation.
 
I am so excited about this strength and training staff. Foreman "gets it" and understands that its not always lifting 700 lbs that makes you a good football player. It's better to lift 500 lbs with perfect technique than lift 700 lbs and have poor form. Poor form in the weight room leads to poor form on the field. It's all muscle memory. Re-learning lifting techniques will stall people who have been in the program for a while, but the long term effects are profound. If you're learning how to fire off the line in the weight room AS WELL as on the practice field, it becomes easier to teach, easier to learn and the strength gains are huge down the road.

ie - look at Richter - he was our strongest guy on the team by a long shot, but he never saw the field. We had a bunch of strong guys last year that were injured and not on the field. It doesn't matter or help the Buffs in practice or games if you're strong and injured...

In regards to the size of our team, I'd rather have someone be 10 or 20 lbs lighter and be able to be on the field for a longer time, than someone heavier who has to come off the field because he is tired. This staff understands the teams that we are going to be playing against and the pace of the game that we will be playing. Our offense is going to be high tempo, the offenses that we go against for the grand majority are fast paced, and we need to have players that can keep up.
 
Well I sure as hell don't trust Harbaugh in his recommendations, ignoring the results he got at SJSU within 18 months...

He then moved up the ladder: Detroit Tigers (intern), Southern California (volunteer), Notre Dame (intern), Sacramento State (assistant), Northern Arizona (assistant) and then to Stanford, where his work under Shannon Turley moved then-head coach Jim Harbaugh to recommend Forman to MacIntyre.

"Our team," MacIntyre said, "drastically changed within 18 months."
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Where does it say that they aren't lifting? The article says - to me - that they are lifting CORRECTLY.


Like the article says -- who cares if you can lift 700 lbs if you are always injured?
 
And I remember how excited some were with Blacken and his NFL experience, the Boise idot's tag along and his wheel barrow....I'll believe it when I see it, thank you very much.
 
leftybuff said:
And I remember how excited some were with Blacken and his NFL experience, the Boise idot's tag along and his wheel barrow....I'll believe it when I see it, thank you very much.
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Yep.

The incoming S&C guy always gets a rosie honeymoon with a new team.

Things go quickly south when YouTube videos pop up showing bad form and when starters pull up limp before conference play.
 
Skidmark said:
Yep.

The incoming S&C guy always gets a rosie honeymoon with a new team.

Things go quickly south when YouTube videos pop up showing bad form and when starters pull up limp before conference play.
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Except when your S&C coach sees tangible results in his first season where there was a 48.75% decrease in games lost to injuries in just his first season alone when they went from 1-11 to 5-7 and then there was a further drop of 31.71% of games lost due to injuries which can be attributed for the most part to his philosophy. Did Blacken or the other guy have those tangible results? Also, let's not ignore the Harbaugh recommendation, that's a big one, that family knows what it takes to win.

Under Blacken kids were practicing injured all the time and limping through practice where as during the Spring under Forman, many kids were held out until they were 100% recovered and received clearance from Forman himself and they spent a good chunk of practice stretching.
 
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leftybuff said:
And I remember how excited some were with Blacken and his NFL experience, the Boise idot's tag along and his wheel barrow....I'll believe it when I see it, thank you very much.
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After the last 10 years or so, this goes with EVERY member of the staff and team.
 
I'm squarely in the "show me" camp. Seems like we always hear a out how great the new guy is and how inept the old guy was.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
I look at these as "Fluff" pieces designed to give hope. There is always some change in S&C philosophy when a change in made but in the long run I don't think it is the crux of the problem. Going back to Doc Kreis we have seen the proclamation of change for the better. The guy from Boise was the one pushing having the high strength scores - I never felt that Pitman was a stellar S&C coach. Blacken had a pretty good resume also so I don't think he had a horrible S&C program.

Here is a Link to the last time we had an S&C change. I am sure that Stanford, USC, Oregon etc have top S&C Staff.
 
Starts with a total buy-in from the current players. They can then help lead to better records and better recruiting. Here's some background on Shannon Turley, Forman's former boss at Stanford, whose teams have shown remarkable strength and a record for being free from injury:

http://www.examiner.com/article/q-a-with-stanford-coach-shannon-turley-part-4 (These two series start with the last article because of the ease linking with the earlier articles.)

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/04/26/shannon-turley-part-iii-the-student-teaches-the-master/

http://www.ruleoftree.com/2011/11/1...original-series-the-program-showcases-some-of

Forman took what he learned as the top aide to Turley and established his own mark at SJSU. Lucky to have him in Boulder. Understands the difference between weight and good weight, between conditioning and football conditioning, between just eating and nutrition.

Understand Handler's frustration, he's learning to do detailed work, not just slug out weights for poundage, for the first time in his career. Yet, how many games did he lose to injury the last couple of years?

Once you read the articles, you get what Turley and Forman are after and why buy-in is so important.
 
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Duff Man said:
It starts with better recruiting. Someday we will get there (hopefully).
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Yep. If you don't want to be undersized, you have to recruit big framed guys. It does nothing good to take your undersized guys and then make them fat, bulk and slow.

Someone like Tupou is naturally plenty big to play DT at the BCS level. Coaches & trainers just need to make sure a guy like that can be on the field no matter the down and distance.

Also, it wasn't Hawkins that slimmed down our linemen so much - that was Embree's program. Hawkins had guys doing Olympic lifts, getting way too bulky and tight, and made our team both slower and more injury prone.
 
Buffnik said:
Yep. If you don't want to be undersized, you have to recruit big framed guys. It does nothing good to take your undersized guys and then make them fat, bulk and slow.

Someone like Tupou is naturally plenty big to play DT at the BCS level. Coaches & trainers just need to make sure a guy like that can be on the field no matter the down and distance.

Also, it wasn't Hawkins that slimmed down our linemen so much - that was Embree's program. Hawkins had guys doing Olympic lifts, getting way too bulky and tight, and made our team both slower and more injury prone.
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Technically it was Marshall he did the same thing at CAL and they hated him for it.
 
If you read the articles in Wizzer's post, you'll find that nutrition is huge part of the Stanford program. I would'nt be surprised that Forman emphasizes the same stuff. There's no need to have a bunch of Gilbert Browns lumbering around out there.

There's bulk and then there's usable weight in the form of muscle, which weighs more than fat anyway. It sounds as if Tupou and the DL boys were playing with way too much baby fat and HCMM wants that turned to muscle.
 
Ralphandler1 said:
After reading it I actually became pretty concerned.
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Really? I actually loved this quote:

How he did it can be ascertained with one walk into the Dal Ward Center's weight room. The obligatory board listing the school lifting records and omnipresent at every school?"I won't put one up," Forman said. "You start chasing a number, for what? I've been places where guys squat 700 pounds. Who cares, if you can't play football?"
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He's trying to say that the focus should be on football. Not on weight lifting. If a player is in the weight room training to get the top bench press or the top squat, they're not focusing on football. Everything a player does in the weight room should be an effort to improve their performance on the gridiron. I love that approach.
 
skinsfan55 said:
Really? I actually loved this quote:



He's trying to say that the focus should be on football. Not on weight lifting. If a player is in the weight room training to get the top bench press or the top squat, they're not focusing on football. Everything a player does in the weight room should be an effort to improve their performance on the gridiron. I love that approach. [/FONT][/FONT]
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Put the win /loss records from the last decade up there.
 
Buffenuf said:
If you read the articles in Wizzer's post, you'll find that nutrition is huge part of the Stanford program. I would'nt be surprised that Forman emphasizes the same stuff. There's no need to have a bunch of Gilbert Browns lumbering around out there.

There's bulk and then there's usable weight in the form of muscle, which weighs more than fat anyway. It sounds as if Tupou and the DL boys were playing with way too much baby fat and HCMM wants that turned to muscle.
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Nutrition, diet is a big part of it. You'll get better results that way along with lifting properly. It seems programs do a better job of having athletes eat right these days.
 
Proving Grounds I by CU video - on vimeo....I just watched all three the other night to fill my football void, but the first installment is S&C specific. Granted I shudder and fear the Hawk speak, but the message seems to be consistent whether it is delivered through in-house productions, print media local or national, and from the reports I have heard from the CO tour and other appearances. I would be more concerned if I was hearing different messages from different coaches, or a changing message over time - which I am watching for after the past two staffs.
Get the technique (lifting) and other basics correct first. Repetition builds that - so initial progress is slow. However over a year of S&C work the results will be better because you will not be losing time over the course to recover from injuries. It also maps to on field. Extra time spent now preventing pre-snap penalties translates to longer drives than having a couple of additional packages, which even if they generate more production are a net loss if they confuse the players and cause drive killing penalties.

The scary part is that kind of philosophy isn't about immediate results - I fear losses early in the winnable part of the schedule, and then tune out from players just when it should be clicking due to stronger competition....I guess that is why football coaches make the big bucks.
 
Buffs@5345' said:
Proving Grounds I by CU video - on vimeo....I just watched all three the other night to fill my football void, but the first installment is S&C specific. Granted I shudder and fear the Hawk speak, but the message seems to be consistent whether it is delivered through in-house productions, print media local or national, and from the reports I have heard from the CO tour and other appearances. I would be more concerned if I was hearing different messages from different coaches, or a changing message over time - which I am watching for after the past two staffs.
Get the technique (lifting) and other basics correct first. Repetition builds that - so initial progress is slow. However over a year of S&C work the results will be better because you will not be losing time over the course to recover from injuries. It also maps to on field. Extra time spent now preventing pre-snap penalties translates to longer drives than having a couple of additional packages, which even if they generate more production are a net loss if they confuse the players and cause drive killing penalties.

The scary part is that kind of philosophy isn't about immediate results - I fear losses early in the winnable part of the schedule, and then tune out from players just when it should be clicking due to stronger competition....I guess that is why football coaches make the big bucks.
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Your quote shows you're missing a key HCMM concept: Make full use of your practice time by having double and even triple the reps per player during practice! No more of 6-8 guys standing around for long periods of time watching only the starters get reps. "Extra time" is not allowed by NCAA rules, but well-organized, well-run practices are. Also, the players are coached to practice "fast" all the time, so the no-huddle and response to it, becomes second nature, unlike that disasterous experiment of Water Bottle's during last August's drills.

As for your "scary part', go read the articles about how Stanford turned it around. Its based on player buy-in. If you have smart, well-coached players you get more competitive, which translates into more wins. CU's players haven't been well coached as college FB players for the last couple of years. I'm just looking to hear that opponents no longer laugh at CU during warm-ups and the team doesn't give up upon leaving the bus, ala Fresno St.
 
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