Today we would like to introduce 2013 Seminar presenter Dr. Michael Kalinski. Dr. Kaliniski is currently a Professor of Exercise Physiology at Kent State University. Prior to his tenure at Kent State, Dr. Kalinski at the Kiev State Institute of Physical Culture and Sport, first as a student, and then as a professor and department chair. With an extensive background in biochemistry, energy metabolism, and ergogenics, Dr. Kalinski is a fantastic addition, and one that certainly will bring a fascinating presentation to our attendees.

Michael Kalinski, Ph.D., FACSM, born 1943 (Ukraine). Fulbright Scholar, Honorary Professor and Honorary Doctor of Bukovinian State Medical University of Ukraine, Life Member of NAPESS, India.
Dr. Kalinski has been a tenured Professor of Exercise Physiology at Kent State University since 1998.

JD: Dr. Kalinski, if you could, please give our readers a little background information about yourself, what your niche in the world of athletics is, accomplishments, how you got there, education, any products you have available, and/or notable publications.

MK:
Sports: Modern Pentathlon.
Education: BS in Physical Education and Sport in Coaching (Modern Pentathlon) from Kiev State Institute of Physical Culture and Sport in the capital of Ukraine – Kiev.

BS in Biology from Shevchenko National University (Kiev).

MS in Exercise Biochemistry, PhD in Exercise Biochemistry from Institute of Biochemistry of National Academy of Science (Kiev).
Professional positions in Ukraine: Professor and Chair of the Department of Exercise Biochemistry of the Kiev State Institute of Physical Culture and Sport in the capital of Ukraine (1972-1990).

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Today I am excited to introduce another one of our speakers for The 2013 Seminar, Kelly Starrett. Kelly received his DPT in 2007 from Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, California. Kelly is most known for his work with CrossFit athletes, but his experience is definitely not limited to just that. Outside of his work at his practice at San Francisco CrossFit, K-Star has also worked with Olympic gold-medalists, Tour de France cyclists, world and national record holding  weightlifters/Powerlifters, ballet dancers, military personnel, and age-division athletes. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce Kelly Starrett.

JD: If you could, please give our readers a little background information about yourself, what your niche in the world of athletics is, accomplishments, how you got there, education, any products you have available, and/or notable publications.

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In today’s Q and A,  we introduce our next presenter for the 2013 Seminar, Ben Peterson.

DR: Ben, great to have you on board for this year’s Seminar. Can you give our readers some background information about yourself?

Ben Peterson, Co-Author of "Triphasic Training"

BP:  I am currently pursuing a Doctorate in Kinesiology and Exercise Physiology at the University of Minnesota. At the university I help run the Sport Performance Lab, testing hundreds of athletes annually in sports ranging from cross-country skiing to football. In addition to my time in the lab, I help teach two courses within the kinesiology department: Strength/Power Development and Health & Wellness. My research looks at repeated sprint ability in anaerobic athletes (specifically as it pertains to energy system efficiency and fatigue) looking at central and peripheral causes of decreased force production. My research also looks heavily at power and rate of force development in athletes and its dynamic correspondence and transferability to sport. Read the rest of this entry

We are extremly excited to announce the latest addition to the 2013 Seminar, Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky. Dr. Verkhoshansky gave two fantastic presentations (GAS, and Shock Method) at the 2012 Seminar and we are excited to have her back in 2013. As part of her re-introduction to our readers for this coming edition of The Seminar, Dr. Verkhoshansky answered some of our questions on jump training. This will be an ongoing series, and trust me when I say that I have a whole pile of questions ready for Dr. Verkhoshansky, but we want yours as well. So please, any questions you may have, post them below or on our facebook page.

Jump Training 101, Dr. Natalia Verkhoshansky

Today we are pleased to announce another presenter for the 2013 Seminar, Yosef Johnson. Yosef is the owner and operator of Ultimate Athlete Concepts, a publishing company dedicated to providing top quality information for coaches training athletes to the highest level. Yosef has been an integral part of the Seminar since its inception, and we are excited to have him this year on the docket as a presenter.  For those who are new to the site, you can check out some of our other interviews with Yosef here:

• Podcast with UAC’s Yosef Johnson
• Keep your eye on the ball
• The man behind the scenes: and interview with Yosef Johnson

DR: Yosef, you’re a bit of a “behind the scenes” guy when it comes to training and producing quality information. How did you get where you are today?

YJ: It’s been a long strange trip. I have always been interested in human performance. As an athlete, I was always a little below average. My obsessive competitive nature and optimism that there was an answer for every problem led me to try many things to improve my ability in high school, though with little success. After high school, this nagged at me until I decided to see if I could play basketball at the D3 level. I began buying books on the subject while trying to decipher who knew what they were talking about. That’s when I bought Secrets of Soviet Sports Fitness and Training by Dr. Michael Yessis. I remembered seeing him on television being interviewed about his work with Todd Marinovich, who was about my age.

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Returning the The Seminar docket in 2013 is Dr. Michael Yessis. Doc has been a regular contributor to the site and a presenter in the past. We are really excited to have him back with us and to be able to sit down with him and go over his training program. For the first time, at least first time I know of, Doc is going to sit down and explain his programing, including the how’s what’s and why’s of it, to our audience. I, for one, have found nothing but fantastic results with my athletes of all levels (ranging from freshmen in high school to professional basketball players) utilizing Doc’s methods. I cannot express how excited I am to have Doc back, and hope you are as well. Without further ado, let me reintroduce, Dr. Michael Yessis.

Q: Doc, it’s great to have you back on the docket! Let’s catch up with our readers and attendees and update them with what is the latest and greatest with Dr. Michael Yessis.

A. Jay, I’ve been doing a multitude of things that have kept me quite busy. Foremost has been the revision of my book, Kinesiology of Exercise. This has been a well-accepted book for the past twenty years. The revised edition however, titled Biomechanics and Kinesiology of Exercise is a greatly expanded book especially with the biomechanical considerations of exercise.

I’ve interwoven this information with even more kinesiological aspects of exercise. I have also added new exercises and more information on the training program, especially for the high school and collegiate athlete. Most notable is the 1 x 20 RM routine that has proven to be extremely successful. The book should be available early November.

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In today’s post we are excited to introduce the 1st speaker on the 2013 Seminar docket, Mr. Henk Kraaijenhof. For those of you who were at The 2012 Seminar you will recall that Val Nasedkin referred to Henk as, “the guy they send their sprinters too to get fixed.” We are extremely excited to have Henk on campus and to hear what he has to offer to the coaching community. So without further adue, here is a Q and A with our first presenter, Mr. Henk Kraaijenhof:

1. If you could, please give our readers some background information about yourself.

Henk Kraaijenhof, born 1955, the Netherlands (Holland)
Sports: Track and Field
Results: 100m 10.5 sec and 400m 47.4 sec

Coaching experience: Nelli Cooman, former world record holder and world champion 1987 and 1989 over 60m; Merlene Ottey 100 and 200m, Sandra Framer-Patrick 400m hurdles, Letitia Vriesde Surinam 800m 1.56.65; Mohammed Al Malki, Oman, 400m 44.56; Patrick Stevens Belgium, 200m; Troy Douglas 100m-400m.
Conditioning: Mary Pierce 2004, Edgar Davids soccer.
Consultant for conditioning: Olympic volleyball team men Holland 2000. Olympic field hockey team men 2008, Oman Sail, Juventus soccer team 1997-1998; Vancouver Canucks 2011, UKathletics.
Consultant for mental conditioning: BBE Royal Marines special forces, Holland.
Collaborated with Prof. Carmelo Bosco on the development of the first vertical vibration platform in 1998.
Collaborated with Dr. Marco Pozzo on the development of the first intelligent strength training machine Exentrix.
Other interests:
use of psychophysiology and biofeedback in elite sports
nutrition and supplementation
innovative concepts for performance and monitoring e.g. Omegawave, Exentrix, Procomp Infiniti.

2. Discuss the mistakes you see made by strength and conditioning coaches in the United States and around the world. What do you feel should be done differently to correct these issues?
As a relative outsider it is interesting to see that US coaches embrace classic Russian concepts for training (the Russian or East bloc “secret”) while Russia and the East bloc countries were always desperately searching for the American “secret”. Since there is not a lot of interest and knowledge in the US in the history of sports methodology, enhanced by a language barrier, US coaches are very fond of in fact outdated ideas which are presented as new.
Just as European coaches always fall for “equipment invented by NASA” or the shoes that made Michael Jordan jump, the bike that made Lance Armstrong a winner (at least he made clear it isn’t about the bike).

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By: Daniel Raimondi

Lessons I’ve learned since the 2012 Seminar

April 26-27 was an awesome weekend for this in attendance at the Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar. Leading up to that weekend(and during) there was so much going on that we here at cvasps.com took a bit of time off to gather ourselves and breathe free for a moment. Now that we’re already into July, it’s time to get started again in preparation for next year’s seminar. To get this started, I want to write some ideas I’ve learned since the 2012 Seminar.

1. Watching Natalia Verkhoshansky take some of the coaches through a hands-on session hammered in the reality that bodyweight calisthenics can be incredibly rigorous for those not used to the exercises.

Lesson learned: Young athletes (»7-11) can get tremendous results by simply doing things like running, skipping, hopping, lunging, etc… for extended periods of time (15-20 minutes).

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As a follow up to Jay’s article, I thought I’d add some of the key points that I personally learned at this year’s Seminar. I know this seems redundant, however, the wealth of information covered in April has left us with a lot to talk about (to say the least). So let’s get right to it.

Mike Robertson:
Being an avid reader of his blog and having seen Mike Robertson present before, I have to say, leading up to the seminar I was very excited to see what else there was to learn from this guy. Mike’s presentation encompassed his view of what corrective exercise actually is and also gave various examples of people who it would benefit most. If we can identify limitations and make simple adjustments to target those limitations, we will be able to greatly impact performance. Of course we all know that our programming should be based on our client or athlete’s weaknesses, but do we actually do this, or just lead ourselves to believe we are? And while we’re working to elevate the level of these limitations, what’s happening with everything else? In other words, are we providing the right amount of focus on these weak areas while still improving performance, or has the rest of the program come to a halt altogether?
Lesson: There are many facets to athletic performance. Make sure to provide the proper amount of focus to each area based on individual needs. Read the rest of this entry

First, it must be said that it is an absolute honor to be associated with this event. There are so many people who make The Seminar possible that if I attempted to list them all I’m certain I would miss someone. So with that in mind, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who was involved with the weekend, from the presenters, to the people in attendance both in Richmond and via the web, to the people who help out behind the scenes with everything from transportation, to set up, to helping with the presenters, everyone, thank you very much for being a part of it. I hope The Seminar is something that you enjoy and are proud to be part of as much as I am. Ok, now that that is said, let’s talk about what I personally took from the weekends’ presentations:

Mike Robertson:
We started out with Mike Robertson discussing what, in his opinion, corrective exercise is. Leading up to The Seminar, Mike said numerous times that the lineup had a ton of really smart people, and Mike Robertson. Mike’s humble thought of himself was immediately proven to be just that, and he showed very shortly that what he should have said was, “there is a great line up of smart people” and left it at that. His holistic approach is, in my mind, dead on, but so many people miss the boat on it. They pass the buck, or just run and hide from actually training whomever it is they are working with and just trying to “fix” them. They can actually train because that’s what corrective work is, and that, to me, is a priceless message: get them better no matter what.
Lesson: The whole is equal to the sum of its parts, and at the same time, the HOLE is equal to the sum of its part. Work to improve performance while working the corrective strategies needed, both on a team and individual basis.

Cal Dietz:
Understanding that, as Dan John said, “the goal is to keep the goal the goal”, Cal brought programming back into focus in his presentation. His methods, which can be found in his book here, are unique, but very focused because “the more specific we can make the stress, the farther we can push the organism to the direction we want it to be.” Keeping a focus to your training and making sure that your training is within that focus is the best way possible to lead to the adaptations to your athletes. Although this sounds simple, in reality it is a very complex, specified, and important concept to follow.
Lesson: Find what qualities need to be improved with that athlete and design the training to stress the athlete to improve the specific quality. Read the rest of this entry