The Best Strength Coach You’ve Never Heard Of

This is an interview I conducted with Jeremy Layport.  He is a friend of mine and one hell of a coach.  He is a co-worker at San Jose State University.

EA: First tell everyone a bit about who you are:

JL: Well Alex, as you know I’m an assistant strength and conditioning coach at San Jose State University who primarily works with Baseball, Softball, Water Polo, M. Golf, and Volleyball. I also assist with the football team and whatever other sport needs extra assistance.

EA: Can you outline your training philosophy for the readers?

JL: I can sum up my training philosophy as teaching correct movement patterns, then basically get people as strong as possible, once that’s accomplished start to get them as fast as possible. Rinse and repeat as much as necessary. Progress from a very basic program to slowly adding in more and more complex/ advanced versions of exercises. Try to set up a process somewhat like the Russian PASM model. I’m not into size for the sake of size or anything with out purpose. Simple to complex, strong to fast…

EA: You have talked about the development of a PASM within college strength and conditioning field. Would you mind discussing the concept and provide a general outline of how this would look?

JL: Well Alex, as you and I have discussed on numerous occasions, being at a low level Div I school, we get a lot of upper and lower caliber athletes that seem to have a lot of dis-function when they come in. It seems like programs always want to get rush the teaching aspect and get everyone integraded into the system as soon as possible. Some head coaches are extremely concerned with “building the camaraderie” aspect of the physical training experience and the instruction suffers from this. I whole heartedly agree with statement’s I’ve read from DB (Inno Sport) and Dr. Ivo (WannaGetFast) that I’d rather teach someone for one year correctly and train for three then constantly fixing poor technique for four years and never making good gains in performance. Along with the PASM model I think some sort of movement and posture assessment screening for performance and function should run hand and hand with one another. The PASM model would run general to specific as almost all athletes coming in need to get much better at the basics.

• 1st year would consist and basically “Core” work, glute activation, mobility work and teach 5-6 fundamental movement patterns. Start with teaching the 5-6 movement using Isometrics to get the athlete to “feel” the correct muscles working with body weight only. Progress to bar work, then start Iso-mio and finish with Plio-Iso-Mio work. Add in some RFI work as in DBs model and maybe light, simple Altitude landing work.

• 2nd year work ME, DE work teach CAT and  chain work. Add some slightly more advanced variations of the basic 5-6 movements. More Altitude landings and some Depth Jumps.

• 3rd year work ME, DE work add in REA work band work. Add some slightly more advanced variations of the basic 5-6 movements.

• 4th year add in AMT work.

Keep all freshmen and sophomores in all sports together in there respective blocks, work juniors and seniors together during team times.

EA: Why do you think such a model has not been implemented

JL: This type of model has been implemented or at least variations of PASM at some schools. Elite fitness ran an article that Stanford’s football program was doing a varition of this that was more of a West Side BB templet. If people aren’t doing something like this I assume, because it’s not what they’re accustomed to doing. It might be more work at first, but in the long run I think athletes would build a better foundation to build off of and performance would pyramid up from there, then random “gimmicky” off again on again programs.

EA: You use kettlebells in your programming. Would you mind discussing how they are implemented?

JL: The Kettlebell is a great tool we use at San Jose State. We’ve kind of “re-tooled” the traditional swing to be a much higher hip-hinge swing that ends up being like a reactive RDL (Romanian Deadlift). We don’t go very heavy and emphasize speed more then weight. We get strong with other typical pulling movements, but the kettlebells ballistically load our hips and if they’re performed fast enough they have a plyometric effect as the kettlebell eccentrically loads the hips. A part from that the kettlebell has a nasty cardiovascular effect unlike anything I’ve ever experienced that we’ll use for conditioning. Kettlebell snatches are basically backward throws so most of the throwing athletes I work with get a nice dose of them to counter all the forward throwing motions they’re doing. The RKC system has been the biggest benefit from the kettlebells as everything you learn when you become an RKC is related to correct movement. Mike Robinson, who writes for T-Mag some times, has a great article he just wrote about his experience at his RKC weekend that reiterates this point really well. Everything I’ve learned from the kettlebell has leaked into every aspect of my training.

EA: Are there any myths, trends, or mistakes in the field that drive you nuts?

JL: The thing that drives me nuts right now is the big crossfit kick… The lack of technique and train to puke mentality of the group is retarded. The crazy thing is I actually like the concept of cross disciplinary style of training (for general populations). It seems like the problem is there doesn’t seem to be any progressions, it just throwing people into the mix of very complex movements, push through fatigue even if it compromises form or safety. I’ve seen there periodization before, but it seems like no one actually follows it. Its just a bunch of workouts to make you puke. This has no place in the training of athletes in my mind.

EA: When you evaluate an athlete what are the most significant problems they have when coming to you and how do you fix the problem?

JL: It seems to be a myriad of problems like lumbo-pelvic stability, glute dysfunction, quad-dominance and in some cases the upper cross syndrome. I’ve recently been using a movement assessment with the volleyball team. After implementing the wannagetfast core DVD Non-tripod/ Deadbug progression, Prone Glute bridge progression, Chair Progression, along with a planking progression all there scores went up 2-3 points in one month. Also implemented Jay Schroeder’s ISO extreme lunge (5min hold) that seemed to really help as well.

EA: If you had one piece of training advice for athletes what would it be?

JL: Continue to learn about training… Also learn to feel the movement…

EA: What does your current workout look like and why is it set up that way?

JL: I played football in college and since then have been oly lifting for about 6 years.

After meeting you, and introducing me to the Inno-sport system, I’ve dumped the Oly training and focusing more on some performance goals (like get my vert up). All the squatting and cleaning has made me pretty quad dominant my self, so I’ve been working straight glute work. I’ve been doing Chris K’s Power Glute Block for about 4-5 weeks now and loving it. I need a lot of rate work.

EA: You’ve recently stated that you’ve never wanted to be that “core” guy but now you get it. Would you please elaborate on that statement?

JL: I used to think that teaching athletes how to brace and have them squat a deadlift was enough to get the job done. It worked for me, but these kids today have all sorts of issues and a deadbug is an extremely difficult exercise for a lot of athletes to accomplish properly. Most don’t even do a push up properly so taking time to truly teach them how to stabilize their pelvis using there abdominals and performing a rib lock while performing any movement is essential to teaching correct movement patterns. If the abs don’t function neither can the glutes and if the glutes don’t function the works being performed by the lower back and hamstrings. Getting proper functioning abdominals and glutes not only will prevent injury it will increase performance. It’s the foundation which anything else will be built. Athletes these days aren’t developing this qualities while they play video games and watch tv.

EA: You’ve also begun implementing the goblet squat and front squat before introducing the back squat.  What is your rationale behind this progression?

JL: The RKC got into implementing the goblet squat through Dan John as a mobility drill to help unlock the hips. As a staff we were doing sumo deads with kbs to unlock there hips prior to squatting and the athletes didn’t pay attention to proper back posture and were rounding often, so by switching to the goblet squat, the athletes are front load a kb which helps engage the abdominals and promotes an open chest and long spine that we want. It unlocks the hips and greases the groove to get them down lower in there squats. I’ve heard Boyle talk about the F.Squat for a while, but I always just thought get it on there back and use bigger weight! When this happens, position, form and depth all suffer! F. Squat promote a longer upright spine position that I want my athletes to use more. If you’ve ever noticed too that people that struggle with depth in a back squat get better with Front Squats so it’s solving a myriad of problems. I get it Mike.

EA: Thank you for doing this and I am sure the readers will find this very informative.

JL: Thank you Alex