205: Boo Schexnayder on Training Organization, Variation and “Trump Card” Workouts for Maximal Power Performance | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features Boo Schexnayder, current strength coach and former jumps coach at Louisiana State University. Boo is regarded internationally as a leading authority in training design, possessing 37 years of experience in the coaching and consulting fields. Most noted for his 12 years on the Track and Field coaching staff at LSU, he is regarded as one of the world’s premier coaches, having developed 19 NCAA Champions and 10 Olympians. Boo is one of the world’s leading authorities on training for speed and power on a variety of levels. I get a lot of requests on the show to talk about training organization and programming, and we had a great chat with Grant Fowler for episode #190, but outside of that show, talks on programming have been a bit sparse, so I was really excited to get Boo back on the line to have a great chat on programming and organization. This show gets into it. It’s one of the best talks I’ve had on straight-forward planning and organization for speed and power training. Although Boo’s deepest and most well-known experience is with track and field, there is a huge gold-mine of information for working with team sport athletes as well. For the episode Boo takes us far into his thoughts on how he builds a power development program through the year, from his “home base” power workouts, working into his more intense work and “trump cards” that he selectively plays when he wants athletes to be their best. We also get into a lot of great information on recovery workouts, de-loading schemes, plyometric training for team sport athletes, full vs. partial range thoughts, and much more. This is not an episode that you casually listen to, it’s one that you really study. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:20 How Boo approaches changing themes in year round training for speed and power athletes, as well as Boo’s take on “proprioceptive staleness” 11:00 How Boo cycles his power training means throughout the year and how he leaves himself work to build on, as well as his “home base” workouts versus his high intensity power workouts 24:20 Boo’s take on training novice versus advanced athletes from a power perspective 25:20 Boo’s favorite “trump card” workout sets to use when peaking athletes for maximal performance 30:30 Boo’s take on building work capacity and how to optimally use recovery days 39:40 How to look at training a team sport athlete from a jump training and plyometric perspective versus a track and field athlete 45:55 Loading to deloading ratios throughout the year for various athletes 51:40 Using higher frequency work in training days, and how that fits in on the periodization timeline 57:25 Thoughts on unilateral work, bilateral work and range of motion in lifting Quotes “Mental staleness is something all good athletes have to trudge through, but physical staleness is a problem” “I think variety in training has a lot to do with proprioceptive shortness” “A lot of times I change (exercises) for the sake of change and variety” “Ultimately, my goal is to get the intensities in my power training as high as I possibly can. I always say that the intensity you reach is the level of performance you are going to get” “There is going to come a time when athletes have seen everything you have and you have to use variety, you have to use creative set-rep loading schemes to move them along” “I save most of the things I use for variety and variance like trump cards at critical spots” “Lower ends of power development provide support for the more intense bouts of reaching that you do: Things like acceleration development, light Olympic lifts, rudimentary plyometrics, those types of things are always in my program from day 1 to day last” “With older athletes, I do a lot of rollover training (Day 1 is neural day. Day 2 is a high-end speed power training day. Day 3 is a restoration day)” “(Regarding “trump cards” in training) The single biggest one is the single rep max work in the Olympic lifts is something I like to use as a high level stimulant. Most of my other trump cards are complexes” “I’ll take 6 different bars with 6 different weights and put them on the platforms, and they have to do squat jumps with all 6 bars” “Mastery is not what makes improvement, the struggle to attain mastery is what makes improvement” “If something is going to be part of your training program, it needs to be part of your training program in some remedial form at the very beginning” “When I hit my highest levels of intensity, I’m hitting max velocity, in doing depth jumping, and I’m doing Olympic lifting where they are going 100%... I’m hitting those types of sessions and those types of units every 10 days or so depending on the athlete. If I’m going to be intense, your exercises have to be simple” “You can be fancy, or you can be intense, you can’t be both… so I have to be simple” “In restoration days, I try to be as diverse as I possibly can, again, to try and alleviate the potential for repetitive movement syndromes and such” “He will do really high intensity plyometrics with his basketball players, once every 17 days. If you look at that 17 day window, there is one day you can fit in a depth jumping session, about 30 contacts or so” “Change of direction is very plyometric in nature, when I see change of direction and jumping, to me those things are more alike than they are different because of the eccentric” “If you are looking at the high intensity days I have, I start with 3 a week and then I progress to one every 10 days (depth jumping/maximal velocity) as the intensity increases” “I look at the key variable to progress being density” “De-loading enables loading, if you look at my work weeks, they are kind of scary, but if you look at my deload weeks, they are also kind of scary. The higher the highs, the lower the lows” “I work on 3 weeks hard, one week easy. My easy week, the whole week all we do is test. We won’t do any sprinting, but we’ll have a time trial. We don’t do any plyometric work but we might have a jump test, we don’t lift per say but we might max out on an exercise” “To be a good coach it isn’t so much about your program, but rather, what’s the appropriate play at this point in time. It’s like a card game.” “Everything I do that’s slow, I try to go full range of motion… if I’m squatting, you know it’s going to be a deep squat” “There are two reasons you are going to go partial range of motion (in the weightroom) the first is specificity…. the second is output. As far as partial vs. full, full is my default” “Doing half squats excessively causes all kinds of problems” About Boo Schexnayder Boo Schexnayder is a current strength coach and former jumps coach at Louisiana State University, and is regarded internationally as a leading authority in training design, possessing 37 years of experience in the coaching and consulting fields. Most noted for his 12 years on the Track and Field coaching staff at LSU, he is regarded as one of the world’s premier coaches, having developed 19 NCAA Champions and 10 Olympians. Schexnayder has coached multiple World Championship and Olympic medalists and has been on several national team staffs, including the staff of Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also possesses 13 years of experience in NFL player development and combine preparations. He frequently lectures and consults domestically and internationally in the areas of speed and power development, training design, motor learning, and rehabilitation. He has operated Schexnayder Athletic Consulting and serves as director of the USTFCCCA’s Track and Field Academy and Thibodaux Regional Medical Center’s performance division. Prior to his collegiate and international career, Schexnayder was a successful prep coach for 11 years, coaching football, track, and cross country.