In this week's episode of Powering Performance, we are joined by Andrew Stuart, Head Strength and Conditioning coach at US Speed Skating. Andrew shares with us making the transition from athlete to coach and some of his training strategies that are leading to improved performance for the athletes he works with.
Ways to listen:
Check out these three highlights:
1. Making the transition from athlete to coach. Andrew’s first internship was working with the football he was a former player on. He describes how it was working with his teammates and friends.
“They saw me as that person in the middle group. They didn’t see me as the coach figure, they saw me still as one of them.”
2. Andrew explains how he implemented Dynamic Strength Indexes into his training with the US Speed skating team and the amazing results that were seen. DSI focuses on where the athlete is deficient so they can begin focusing on this area, for example if they are really strong but very slow they will focus more on ballistics.
“ If your ratio is below 0.6, you need to address ballistics. You're too far away from one. If your ratio is above 0.8, you need to work on strength. They're too close to each other. So you need to build up your strength capabilities. If you're in between those 0.6 and 0.8, you're concurrent. You're not weak, and you're not slow.”
3. Andrew incorporated Velocity Based Training along side Dynamic Strength Indexes in order to get more useful data from the athletes.
“They're going 30 plus miles an hour. They're having to hold that position around an apex of a corner, and they're balancing on a very thin blade. That is taxing to the athlete. So taking that all into consideration and having VBT too, guides us on how ready the athlete is for training and then adjusting the training to be beneficial. “
Connect with Andrew Stuart
Email: astuart@uspskating.org
Instagram: @coachstuart
Twitter: @astuartlift
Thanks to Andrew Stuart for joining us!