Force 46 Strength and Conditioning: The John Stucky Perspective; Transformative knowledge for fitness and physical education design

Force 46 Strength and Conditioning

The John Stucky Perspective; Transformative knowledge for fitness and physical education design

Anthony Tridico

Copyright © 2023 Anthony Tridico

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88793-785-4 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88793-796-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Tribute to John Stucky

Knowledge versus Perception/Opinion

Algebraic Relations and Training

Cardiovascular Doctrine Creates a Mess

Force 46 Barrel

Adaptation as a Main Law of Training

Accommodation

Individualization

Mechanical Feedback

Intermuscular Coordination

The Peak-Contraction Principle

Accommodating Resistance

Political Culture in Public Schools

S-Factors and Grading System

Classroom Design

Importance of Early Movement

References

About the Author

Preface

As you will see after reading this book, the ideas and echo chambers of the concepts of fitness, training and exercise modes and methods can be broken down to individual proprietary interests that create many myths, fallacies, and confusing perceptions that lead to cultural problems in the study of human movement and how you can take the best care of your body for a lifetime. By nature, the echo chambers in all aspects of fitness and education create confused knowledge bases with many shortcomings, and the proverbial circle jerk, that is the echo chamber, becomes a theory guided by self-promotion and deceit both knowingly and unknowingly.

You cannot address physical education design without addressing the political and corruptive practices that are rampant/prevalent in public education (kindergarten through college) as well as the cultural problems with coaching (in any sport). All these ties with real science and art to address the ills society creates in all facets of problem-solving for the greater good in any given area. The one person who was far advanced in all aspects of training and personified excellence as a human being was Coach Stucky.

I have observed many alarming trends in sports training and fitness information, as well as alarming trends in physical education over the last thirty years. Social media is saturated with training information and opinion, which reaches all aspects of society. This is especially alarming and often detrimental to the multisport athlete at the lower levels (e.g., kindergarten through high school). Siff made the statement that other than periodization, no other Russian sporting secret has captured the attention of Western coaches and athletes as powerfully as so-called plyometrics (Siff, 2003). I have observed two other training concepts that should be added to this list and, to this day, are regarded as the magic bullet of success. The two other training concepts are specialization and sport-specific training. These two concepts have been so misrepresented with the lower levels of sport and specifically with the multisport athlete. Misrepresentation of these concepts has led to crazy belief systems that are as ingrained in our society as the cardiovascular doctrine from the 1960s. The misrepresentation or misinterpretation of all of these concepts has had a negative impact on the multisport athlete as well as the importance of physical education.

Tribute to John Stucky

I knew when I left the weight room at the University of Arkansas for the final time that all people should learn to train like this!

Coach Stucky was a pioneer in strength and conditioning for athletes. If Coach Stucky wasn't the first true strength and conditioning coach, then he is as close to being the first as they come. In 1970, Coach Stucky began a successful two-year stint playing in the CFL for the British Columbia Lions. His interest in coaching and sharing strength training with other football players, however, drew him back to Kansas State. While earning a master's degree in physical education, Coach Stucky was a freshman-line coach and ran the Kansas State strength and conditioning program. In 1974, Coach Stucky went to Wichita State where he was both the defensive line coach and strength coach. In 1977, Coach Stucky moved to the University of Arkansas where he served as strength coach and linebacker coach. During this time, the Razorbacks appeared in the Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. In 1980, Coach Stucky moved to North Carolina State University and served as a defensive line and strength coach. He was able to give up his on-field coaching responsibilities and run the growing strength and conditioning program full-time. In 1984, Coach Stucky went to Oklahoma State as a full-time strength coach. He spent four seasons running the weight room there and worked with athletes Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders. On his strength program, Coach Stucky commented, We're not preparing a guy to be a bodybuilder. We're preparing him to be a running, jumping, explosive athlete. Coach Stucky returned to Arkansas once again in 1988 to take charge of the Razorbacks' strength and conditioning program. Under his guidance, the Razorbacks won back-to-back Southwest Conference championships in 1988 and 1989. (Coach Stucky also coached Barry Foster who is another great running back.) Coach Stucky had earned about every major accolade that can be bestowed on a strength and conditioning professional (e.g., in spring 2001, Coach Stucky was named one of the ten master strength and conditioning coaches by the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association—the title was the highest honor that could be achieved as a strength and conditioning coach; under Coach Stucky's leadership, the Vols compiled an 80–16 record and won the national title in 1998; the Vols also captured two Southeastern Conference crowns and three Eastern Division titles in the eight year span; Coach also was the strength and conditioning coach for the Arkansas basketball team that won the national title in 1994 and went to three final fours, which I witnessed firsthand because we often trained together in the weight room at the University of Arkansas; Coach Stucky was also named national coach of the year in 1996 by the Professional Football Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association; and Coach Stucky was also twice picked by his SEC peers as the league's top strength coach), and yet, having personally gone through his workouts for years, he was even greater than the accolades he earned.

Coach Stucky was a quiet, calm man who carried himself in a physical and humble manner! You visibly understood that you were standing next to a legend, and yet those words would never come out of his mouth. He was just happy to look forward to the lifts of the day and watch people get better. I have earned many accomplishments and awards over the last thirty years. The best compliment I ever received, and hang on to like it was yesterday, was when an assistant strength coach pulled me aside and said, Coach Stucky paid you a compliment!

I was totally lost in a surreal moment and looked confused and excited at the same time and responded, What did Coach say?

The assistant strength coach replied, Coach Stucky said he had never seen anyone improve as much as you!

To this day, that set my life's course and continued the quest for expertise. I went on to Boise State University, and Joe Kenn immediately took me in as an assistant coach (because he knew Coach Stucky's reputation) and put me to work coaching immediately and even put my name tag on the door. I gained a lot of knowledge with Coach Kenn and being a graduate student at Boise State University in the exercise and sports studies program.

My father passed away in 1996 while I was at Boise State University, so I decided to move back to Pennsylvania and teach and coach in the public schools. This decision was also directly related to my experience back at Arkansas when our football coach was fired. Arkansas made a poor choice in who they hired, and this sorry excuse for a coach had a long-standing issue with Coach Stucky. I did not know this at the time. The only thing I knew was this so-called football coach came into a legend's weight room and said that all players have to squat with safety squat bars, not regular barbells, and tried to play backdoor politics behind the scenes. This fact was inconceivable to me, and yet it happened.

Coach Stucky had no time for this kind of unprofessional incompetence, and long story short, Coach leaves the University of Arkansas to take the head strength and conditioning position at the University of Tennessee. I remember that the teammates I was speaking with at that moment were all happy for Coach Stucky, but I distinctly remember saying that Arkansas will get worse quickly, and that was exactly what happened. The other thing my teammates said was that Coach Stucky said he will win the national title at Tennessee within three years. The University of Tennessee did exactly that, winning the national championship game against Florida State University in 1998!

The fact that I witnessed firsthand the absurd politics at the division I level (i.e., that you could be the best strength coach in the country, and if the football coach gets fired, the new football coach can bring his own coach in, and you can be replaced for no reason at all). This was where I was so disgusted, that I realized that I likely did not want that lifestyle and felt I could greatly help many kids and adults in public schools without the petty money/ego-driven ignorance at the university level. Ironically, over the course of twenty five years, I found out that human ignorance is alive and well in all aspects of public schools or likely in any job that is part of a system in general. The only true way to get away from that nonsense is to be self-employed and run your own business, which I currently do now, or shrug your shoulders and not make waves, just be status quo.

The other driving motivator Coach Stucky personified was the love for the kids and his quest for being a Christian. He loved to help people to learn to honor the Lord. He wanted people to have something more, which, in short, was eternal life. I have yet to reach that level of appreciation for his profound faith, but this was just another prime example why Coach Stucky was at the top of the mountain in strength and conditioning and in faith. The rest of us will always have to look up and hope we can keep getting better.

Coach Stucky coached many famous athletes like Peyton Manning, Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas, Quinn Grovey, Corliss Williamson, and most importantly, Coach Stucky coached me! The knowledge I gained can't be found simply in a book or in a scientific laboratory. I am very proud that I am just an extension of the man, and that realization helped me understand that it is not relevant how good you are individually, it is only important that you realize that it is what other people/God did for you that makes you great. (This statement is likely not understood in the professional bureaucracy that has now overtaken college sports and trickled down to the high schools and middle schools.) Coach Stucky would not be pleased with the changes in sports currently coming out of the COVID-19 years. Coach Stucky was not a get-back coach that you see on ESPN, ABC, and CBS prime-time games that make the college strength coach look like a fool! Coach Stucky was never subservient to political titles and the money! Coach Stucky was a servant to his faith and his love for his kids and family. To this day, Coach Stucky's gifts that I was able to take have allowed me to be great in my own way, and I could not have gotten there if it wasn't for him.

After all the schooling—all the research of Russian manuals and reading and dissecting anything I could get my hands on, all the state level presentations and self-driven professional development with other great coaches along the way—I have come full circle, and my program design process and philosophy comes right back to Coach Stucky along with the exact feeling I had back in 1992 that every human being should train like this!

Knowledge versus Perception/Opinion

I heard Louie Simmons speak, many years ago, on two different occasions at the Pennsylvania state strength and conditioning conference. A person who wants to continually get better should hope to glean a few pieces of very important information that maybe they forgot about or just weren't aware of. These few pieces of information can really help for continual improvement and lead to application of knowledge that has not been duplicated in a science lab. The idea of following science has never been more abused than with the COVID-19 epidemic and with the No Child Left Behind Act in the early 2000s. Both these issues have led society into complete disarray, ignorant echo chambers, and political corruption.

Science is very important, however, I have observed that the great practitioners in weight lifting and strength and conditioning are always far ahead of science. The reason for this is that when a great practitioner is working with twenty-seven men and women's sports, and lifts are prescribed in certain sequences, it is nearly impossible to recreate that environment in a controlled laboratory environment. A second reason for this gap between science and practice (i.e., art) is the nature of the United States' culture to self-promote or push self-serving agendas over real knowledge and practical application as I will outline throughout the book.

There are endless examples of self-proclaimed titles in the fitness industry. The list actually is endless on the next magic bullet that was never correct to begin with. However, I chose the following studies to be some of the prime examples of nonsense that become published junk science. The junk science then becomes a new echo chamber yet at the same time is the same rehash of old trash that leads to poor coaching, poor physical education, poor weight loss claims, and poor certifications that allow misguided fitness fanatics the belief systems that confound any sense of reality or truth. I laugh at the newfound terms in training (e.g., HIIT—high-intensity interval training, MICT—moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory training), and somehow, these new-wave terms signify different training versus weight training, warped perceptions like doing yoga is a better form of fitness for nonathletes, walking on a treadmill is better fitness later in life, buying a Peloton bike for $1,500–$2,500 for fitness, walking ten thousand steps for fitness, targeting heart rate and circuit training are key for training, BMI (body mass index) is the standard for identifying obesity, long slow distance running is best for conditioning, etc.—all these echo chambers will be given a reality check throughout this book.

As you will see after reading this book, I always believed and it has proven to be true for more than thirty years and many thousands of athletes and clients that there really should only be one term to describe great training, and that term is strength and conditioning. Coach Stucky was way ahead of his time, and there has never been a time where the need to have that kind of knowledge to be present in the corrupt Wild West times that society is