Today I’m excited to share a quick interview I recently did with Robert dos Remedios (Coach Dos).
For those of you that don’t know Coach Dos, he is one of only 100 Master Strength & Conditioning Coach in the world recognized by the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa), a Nike Elite Performance Coach and was the 2006 NSCA Strength Coach of the Year. He’s also co-authored Men’s Health’s Power Training, Men’s Health’s Cardio Strength Training, and Men’s Health’s Total Fitness Guide.
I’ve read a lot of his work over the years and had an opportunity to hear him speak at a Perform Better Summit a few years back. It’s difficult to summarize his body of work into a single sentence, but if I had to try, I’d say he specializes in designing programs to get incredible results with large volumes of athletes.
This is one of the reasons why I was so excited to review his new program, Complete Program Design, which was officially released this morning. As is always the case with new product launches, they’re offering a crazy discount during the launch week (ends Friday at midnight EST). If you’re interested in writing more effective programs, I highly recommend checking it out.
In the interview, Coach Dos answers a few questions I had for him after reviewing his program about the importance of having a complete program, core training, and making program design more efficient. Enjoy!
KN: Not everyone has a goal of “wanting to improve everything.” Can you talk about how a “complete program” is still necessary even if someone just wants to improve one quality, like speed?
CD: One of the biggest requests I get from athletes and parents etc. is “I want to get faster….what do I do?” Most of the time they are looking for speed drills. The biggest misconception is that we can just dial that speed training in and that’s all it will take to reach that goal. Sure speed drills are great, but getting stronger and building power will ultimately make you faster. This is where having a complete training system will always be superior to cherry picking drills for a specific goal. We always need to keep an eye on the BIG picture. In this case, the combination of strength, power, and speed training will deliver better results.
KN: That’s a great point, and something I hear of a lot from athletes. There’s a lot more to speed training than just running sprints!
I really like how you broke down your core training into simple categories to make programming more efficient. Can you give an example of how your core exercises transfer to sport performance?
CD: We break down our core into 2 sub-categories: What I call “Pillar” or “anti-extension exercises” and “Rotational/anti-rotational exercises.” When we address both categories we create a complete core, one that is not only strong and functional, but much more resistant to injury. I think of an exercise like a TRX or a superband pallof press as essential to performance as it requires the body to resist rotational forces; this is key in any sort of contact or collision sport as it helps us decelerate forces which can help in reactive performance and injury prevention.
KN: Last year I invested a significant amount of time (and money) in getting better with excel to make our data collection, test reporting and program design more efficient and professional looking.
Your “program maker” file is AWESOME. It looks like it took a lot of time to put together, but probably saves you a lot of time now. Can you talk about the benefits of having a system like this to design programs?
CD: I’m not an excel expert so I had to outsource the development of the cards. That being said I think these are the ‘x-factor’ in this program. Not only does it save time, it takes the guesswork out of building workouts. It’s almost impossible to accidentally miss a movement pattern that needs to be trained and it keeps you honest in terms of avoiding exercises you many not like, but we know you should be doing.
These cards will literally change the way you attack your program design.
KN: I agree. With the drop-down menus, you can literally create goal-specific training programs in a few minutes.
Thanks for doing a quick interview!
To your success,
Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com
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