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Zac Kongonis | Strength & Conditioning

@zac_kongonis

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Coaches need to stop specialising so early.

it’s creating a problem where we have a lot of ‘specialists’ with no foundation or critical thinking skills.

It is one thing to be so intrigued by a single topic that you devote and immeasurable amount of time to learning everything about it.

It’s another thing to enter the industry in one sport, play it for a little bit, then call yourself a specialist because anything outside of that sport you don’t know.

Our industry needs more good strength and conditioning coaches, it’s a lot harder to sell things on Instagram and it can be quite difficult to live outside a niche in this climate.

But for the majority of coaches broadening your skill set is going to allow you to have a substantially greater impact on those you interact with and the communities you’re a part of.

#athlete #strengthandconditioningcoach #sport by @zac_kongonis

If you are an athlete competing in a sport.

You have needs and development that needs to happen independent of the sport.

If the only development you are getting is coming from skills coaches and whatever you do in your arena of competition, you are in a bad spot.

Developing as an athlete requires laying an intelligent and intentional foundation, it’s not something that people just stumble upon.

And it’s either done through a heart breaking amount of trial and error or aligning yourself with people and a team who have done it for others.

Performance happens when athletes are so competent and well developed they can react to the demands of a sport in conventional AND unconventional ways. by @zac_kongonis

Carsten’s World Cup campaign and Olympic debut.

First, I want to say a massive congratulations to Carsten and the phenomenal athletes he got to push with this season.

Across 22 heats at World Cup races and the Olympics (in both 2-man and 4-man), only 4 start ranks fell outside the top 5 for the sleds Carsten pushed on.

Which is just an incredible showing of the raw outputs produced by the sled combination he was a part of.

As a coach, having an athlete in your care step onto the Olympic stage is one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking things I’ve had the privilege to experience in this profession.

Seeing firsthand the travel, the physical toll, and some of the conditions these athletes have to perform in is quite sobering and makes what they accomplish all the more impressive.

There were plenty of moving parts behind the scenes during this campaign.

A lot of iterations of the plan were made on the fly, and even more oddly timed phone calls were had making sure access to equipment, time, and travel schedules lined up with the KPIs we were chasing across the ice, the gym, and the track.

At each point we had to pivot or change due to whatever circumstance popped up. Communication was on point, intentions were clear, and Carsten just trucked on through like an overly caffeinated workhorse on a mission.

A coach doesn’t get to take any credit for an athlete’s performance, in my opinion. All that credit belongs to the athlete who busted their ass.

But what I get to hang on my wall is knowing I had the privilege to play an important role in supporting that performance and that my input was a trusted voice through the process.

This has been one of the highlights of my career in S&C, and I couldn’t be more excited to see what comes next.

I couldn’t be prouder of him! by @zac_kongonis

too cute not to participate by @zac_kongonis

You are allowed to be bad at sprinting, you need to be bad at before you can be good.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be working inside your capacity.

Use the available tools and the correct application to make sure that the sprinting that you do isn’t horrible.

Because a great tool implemented terribly is a terrible tool.

this goes for athletes who were already competent trying to improve or resolve problems that they have, or someone picking it up for the first time.

A bunch of really low quality work is not the solution. by @zac_kongonis

Hip extension matters.

If you can’t do it well your performance is limited.

But it isn’t always about how “strong” your glutes are.

If you struggle to actually get into a position to drive effectively the problems is probably access or range of motion at the hip.

Having no muscle mass attached to the back of you is just a problem in general but that is a very obvious one.

And it isn’t just about how strong your glutes are, it’s about how effectively your whole posterior chain can produce a lot of force quickly in the right position (aka delayed knee extension).

If one of those things is missing your body will find a way to still produce the action albeit with different tissues to lesser success. by @zac_kongonis

This isn’t a hate letter to jumping.

It’s just a reminder that ploughing high intensity Plyos every day probably isn’t a good idea.

They are a tool to support elastic development and power output, they aren’t the single useful road.

Volume prescriptions are hard, broad and very difficult to give a specific number of contacts because it varies so heavily.

My best advice is pair them with your speed / sprint days in the begging or as warmups / prep before team practices.

THEN if you identify they are an important lever to pull to develop x quality start adding more into your gym days keeping it under that 3 days of hard exposures and see what happens 🤷 by @zac_kongonis

Your future coaches best work comes 6 months into working with you.

It takes a long time to get a handle on what those in your care actually need.

It’s not just a magical wave of the wand where we fix all your problems, so the more problems you come in with the longer it will take to find that roll. by @zac_kongonis

I heard a quote today -

“You only feel impostor syndrome if you are lying”.

And it is probably the truest thing I’ve heard all week.

I’m not here to pretend to be a guru or someone who has an in depth knowledge on everything in S&C.

I can’t promise you a solution to every problem and I certainly can’t promise I won’t make mistakes.

But I care enough to find answers to the things I don’t know and I love my job.

Im just a dude who has been coaching for his entire adult life nothing more nothing less. by @zac_kongonis

As an athlete, you find the best progress when you start looking foward to problems you aren’t facing yet.

Don’t wait until you are forced to deal with it.

#athlete #strenthandconditioning by @zac_kongonis

This started off as satire then I accidentally made one a real point now it’s just a big of everything.

Proceed with laughter in mind ❤️

Or don’t, idk homie. by @zac_kongonis

There are two sides to this equation, how much meat you have to extend your hip then how well you can complete the action.

It is hard to deny at the highest level of most sports you don’t see poorly developed glutes, simply because they play such a HUGE role in explosive actions.

So if your only way to develop them is by inconveniencing everyone in the gym by using every plate on the hip extension try this instead.

1) make sure you have a good split of base volume across hip extension that is in both the shortened and lengthened position (think heavy RDLs vs a back extension)

2) Make sure you train each side unilaterally, it is VERY hard to access full hip extension in a bilateral context.

3) Don’t skimp on your power development, although it isn’t ‘traditional’ hypertrophy, exposure to actions with a high rate of motor unit recruitment at high loads will still have an effect on tissue growth.

4) Load the shit out of it, your ass is a huge muscle so let it manage the load that it is capable of. by @zac_kongonis