340: Michael Zweifel on Moving From Strength to Sport Coach and Rethinking Skill and Speed Transfer in Athletic Performance

Today’s podcast features coach Michael Zweifel. Michael is the special teams coordinator, defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator for the UW-La Crosse football team. He is the former owner of the “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa. Michael was the all-time NCAA leading receiver with 463 receptions in his playing days at University of Dubuque. He is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”. Michael is a multi-time appearing guest on the Just Fly Performance Podcast, speaking on elements of sport movement and skill, ecological dynamics and more. It is interesting to consider our current format of sports performance training (strength coaching sessions in the weight room, sport coaching on the field, and a substantial degree of separation between the two), and if our current model will be the same one seen in 20 or 50 years in training. Michael has always been in both the strength and skill side of athletic performance, but has recently moved to a skill-side only element, in his move to football coaching at The University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse. For the show today, Michael talks a bit about what led him to close down his private-sector sports performance business, and move into only football-coaching. He’ll chat on the sport movement and ecological dynamics principles that he took with him into that football coaching job, and his vision for the strength program that would fit within his sport coaching role that is quite different than the norm in college sports. We’ll also chat on maximizing the transfer in speed work for sport, and the chaotic nature of adaptation and performance in sport, versus a more linear sequencing in traditional S&C settings. This show is one that will stretch our thinking regarding a lot of current beliefs and practices, and makes for a great conversation in the high-performance dynamic of sport. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 4:13 – How and why Michael moved from being a strength and physical preparation coach, to being a sport coach, coaching NCAA D3 football 7:51 – Michael’s counter-industry theory on use of the weight room for his football population 21:06 – How Michael’s motor learning background while he was working in the physical preparation field prepared him to coach football in the NCAA 24:08 – What a typical practice looks like for Michael’s training group 26:57 – Michael’s thoughts on general versus specific agility drills for athletes 35:46 – Thoughts on linear vs. variable patterns of adaptation in athletics and sport, versus a strength and conditioning setting 46:37 – Michael’s take on speed work that moves the needle the most, for team sport athletes, specifically football in this case “My issue with strength and conditioning is that we are all doing the same thing, so how can you separate yourself? To have a competitive advantage you can’t do what everyone else is doing” “You can accomplish those adaptations/results (tissue resiliency) without ever setting foot in a weight room” “The only tools (for my d-backs) I guess I would use would be a sled, a med ball, and a band, or a weighted vest” “I think coaches would be a lot better if they had to require 6 months of getting out of the weight room, and finding ways to get those similar adaptations without relying on a barbell that we are normally comfortable with” “In order to improve an athlete’s movement, they have to be put and placed in context, or an environment that retains a lot of variables they see in sport, which is live human bodies” “Do the activities you are having your athletes do look, feel, behave, like sport” “I’m constantly trying to keep those variables, rep without rep, representative task design, manipulating constraints” “For my individual training periods, we are always partnered up” “In ecological dynamics there are different time-scales for how people adjust to these drills (it’s not a purely linear progression)” “I think general agility games are super beneficial, and we did that all the way up through high school. But once you become more specialized in your sport, then the training has to become more specialized” “That’s more fun to me where week in, week out you are constantly having to change and adapt” “Athletes taking risk and adapting within movement, that’s what we should be rewarding” (For speed training for football players) “Find or create an activity that looks, feels, and behaves, like football” “You want to train max velocity, open up space, and open up time, to allow athletes to interact with that space and time” “I think it involves getting out of the weight room and studying the sport more… getting out of the weight room and find ways to contextualize your speed may overcome some of those disadvantages a program may have” About Michael Zweifel Michael Zweifel is the special teams coordinator, defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator for the UW-La Crosse football team. He is the former owner of the “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa. Michael was the all-time NCAA leading receiver with 463 receptions in his playing days at University of Dubuque. He is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”.