Latest / The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast / Year-Round Training Blocks w/ Coach Derek Shell, Napoleon HS | The Platform Ep. 29

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Year-Round Training Blocks w/ Coach Derek Shell, Napoleon HS | The Platform Ep. 29 · The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast

• Chris Whittaker: Welcome to the platform. Before we get into today's conversation, we've got two important announcements for the Michigan High School powerlifting community. First, the MHS PLA Hall of Fame is officially accepting nominations for its inaugural class. We're looking to honor athletes, coaches, and contributors who helped build our association and grow the sport across Michigan. Eligible lifters must have graduated in 2021 or earlier. Coaches must have had at least 10 years of active MHS PLA coaching experience, and contributors must have had at least Fifteen years of involvement. Each year, three to five individuals we selected with the inaugural class recognized this year during the varsity state championship weekend. You can find the official Hall of Fame criteria in the show notes. And second to that, Coach Nick Lusk, retired head powerlifting coach from Troy Athens High School, is hosting a clinic. Coach Lusk, if you've heard pr him previously on the platform, he's been a multi-time guest. Has been a tremendous resource for sharing coaching knowledge and helping develop high school powerlifting. If you're looking to improve your coaching, learn new approaches, and continue building your program, make sure you check out the clinic announcement on our MHSPLA social media pages for details. And while you're there, make sure you follow the association, subscribe to the platform, and leave us a rating and review. You can also support the podcast and the MHSPLA by visiting Forthwall Shop at MHSPLA das shop dot forthwall dot com. Today's episode, we are talking about the anatomy of a training block with Coach Derek Schell from Napoleon High School. And this is one of the biggest challenges facing high school strength coaches in powerlifting programs. How to build stronger athletes when they're competing in multiple sports and training year round. Coach Shell joins Coach Gillum and myself and talk about all the ways that he helped grow Napoleon powerlifting from just eight athletes in the first season to roughly fifty or sixty lifters while coaching football and track and field and teaching at Napoleon High School. We get into how we structure training blocks around the school calendar, differences between linear periodization and the conjugate method, exercise selection, managing fatigue, and making the most of limited weight room time. We also talk about building a powerlifting program out of smaller school and getting athletes to buy into year-round training, adjusting workouts when athletes aren't recovering, and why sometimes the best thing a coach can do is learn from somebody else. Coach Shale shares his own experience experimenting with the conjugate method and chasing a 405. Before we get started, again, hopefully you're subscribed. Leave us that rating and review. Don't forget to visit the Fourth Wall Shop. Ladies and gentlemen, step up, lock in, the bars loaded for Coach Shell, Episode 29, all about building your training blocks. Hit the intro music. Ladies and gentlemen, the bar is loaded for another episode of your Michigan High School Powerlifting Association podcast, The Platform, where the stories weigh a ton. I'm your co-host, as always, Chris Whitaker, Dexter High School Iron Dread Strength and Conditioning, Iron Dread Powerlifting, and the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association board. I am here with my co host, as always, the executive director of the MHS PLA, Coach Chris Gillum. Coach Gillum. We're back for another one. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. Excited to have our guest today. we're gonna talk about training blocks, and go over that a little bit and get his take. So I'm excited for that. Chris Whittaker: And our guest is a man that I have had many a conversation with at Power Lifting Meets, being close by here to Dexter. The school where he is located is Napoleon High School. Napoleon is about 1,300 students, K-12, with 352 students in grades nine through twelve. This man coaches football, powerlifting, and track and field. At Napoleon High School. And Derek, forgive me if I missed one. his name, Mr. Derek Shell. Coach Shell, welcome to the pod. Derek Shell: Thank you. It's great to be here. it's great to see the MHS P L A doing some fun and exciting things. Chris Whittaker: It i it is fun, exciting, but there will be a point where you get what you pay for on this episode where we will s I mostly me will screw something up. yeah, and we'll see how it goes. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: That's what all that editing is for, right? Chris Whittaker: I don't like I don't like doing the editing, so sometimes it just stays in sometimes it's Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. Chris Whittaker: it gives us a authentic feel to the show. It's very conversational, you know. Derek Shell: yeah, yeah. You might hear the the daughter crying or throwing a tantrum upstairs right now, but Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, it happens. That's life. We're Chris Whittaker: Hey, that's yeah. The the last one we Chris Gilliam: real people. Chris Whittaker: did w mine walked in and Derek Shell: Ha ha. Chris Whittaker: started to walk away with my water bottle. Chris Gilliam: Okay, so our focus today is we're gonna be talking about training blocks, like the layout of some exercise selection with some some weekly structure and maybe some thoughts and ideas that you have on how you manage fatigue with sports demands. you know, progression testing type stuff. Just a few little things about that because you know, w what I think is great about having You on the show, Derek, is, you know, in the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association, I'd say a bulk of our 70-some schools that participate are similar to yours. Okay. There are 500 students or lost in the high school. And, you know, you got multi-sport athletes and they have to be trained accordingly, you know, and so the mindset has to kind of match that. that demand for what you know, that they're playing two, three sports. Some of even try and dual sport within a s a season and they could be getting four sports in during a school year, right? You know, and so Derek Shell: We we had a kid try sporting for us last year. He was Chris Gilliam: Did you? Derek Shell: he had he was doing basketball wrestling and was powerlifting and then was Chris Gilliam: Okay. Derek Shell: traveling all over the country for some football stuff. So he was he was doing it all and and at a high level he placed I think he was second in the s in the super heavyweight division for the J Vs. Chris Gilliam: Nice. Yeah, so okay, yeah, that that might be the first I've heard of a a try sport in the season. That's great. so you know, before we get started into some questions, give us a little bit of background on yourself, Derek. Like where are you from? how long have you been at Napoleon? So those types of things, you know. Are you married? Do you have kids? Those types of things. Derek Shell: Yeah, I'll start off. I'm been married. you can see I got in the background I got my three children. Harper is my oldest. I got Liam is five and then Jax is just turned three last last Monday. and then my married to my beautiful wife. We celebrate twelve years on the nineteenth. been together sixteen sixteen years now, seventeen years. married twelve. so I I've been you know, I I I've been fascinated with lifting, for s really since I was in about sixth grade. older brothers were lifting and then lifted all through high s high school and college and then when I first started coaching and teaching I was at Pittsford and was working with the weight room in there, waking up early, getting kids in the weight room. And then when I moved to Napoleon in twenty sixteen kinda took over the s the winter weightlifting stuff that we had going and that was great and we had kids who, you know, wanted we had Grass Lake, which is a huge school right next to us, right around twenty nineteen they started talking about wanting to get into it. And I had like, you know, twelve kids and it's like, Well, I'll I'll I'll look into it and I'll see what's going on and I got online and Back then the website wasn't always up to date. and it was like, I think we've missed everything and then Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: it was about Jan it was about January when that happened and then we got into the next year was COVID and that was you know, was a was a mess. But we came out of COVID. I think I talked you and coach Cole and Rule a little bit and we we ended up getting a team together for the twenty twenty one season. was our first year. We started with about eight kids. we were just we're just a club. I didn't we didn't train together or anything, but we had a couple of kids who wanted to work out and then rolled that into a group of about twenty twenty kids and twenty two. And now we're we've been sitting right around fifty or sixty kids the last couple of years in the program. It's one of the biggest sports teams that we have We handed out our first varsity letters last year. I think I talked to you and Whitaker, the three Chrises about, you know, what the kind of the standards were for that. so that's been it's kinda been our our journey. We've we've had a we've had a blast doing it. I I think yeah, our kids love it. and we just kinda talk about being better than we were yesterday. So Chris Gilliam: Yeah. So where did you go to high school at and where did you go to college? Derek Shell: I was at an Onstead High School, so a similar school to Napoleon. we would play each other in sports. did football and basketball there. And then I was kind of when I first heard about powerlifting, Adrian Madison, I think it was Bill Wilharms was was training some kids out of there. And then after high after high school I went and went to Adrian College with a Played football there for four years and and rolled out into a coaching high school football for the last twelve seasons or fift fifteen seasons now coaching high school football. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Well thank you for sharing your background with us. And you know, like I said, I I think you fall into that category w that reflects a lot of the schools in our association, you know, as far as your school size and all those demands. Coach Whitaker, you wanna start with the first question? Chris Whittaker: Sure thing. Hey, but it I'm gonna go way back. He talked about that kid that d played all those sports. shout out Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: my guy Houston. what Snellenberger, is that how you pronounce his last name? Derek Shell: Yeah. Yeah, Hulston S Halston Snellenberger. He's he might he I think he Chris Gilliam: Yeah. That's the guy, right? Derek Shell: he Yeah, he I think he might have had five or six varsity letters as a sophomore. 'cause he played varsity football Chris Gilliam: That's awesome. Derek Shell: for us as a freshman, played basketball, was a high level power lifter for us. I don't know if he ever actually made made it on the wrestling mat. and then He was doing baseball and track. He got he got beat up a little bit towards the I don't know if it was at the the state powerlifting meet or one of his he was travelling all over the country doing the sound mind, sound body stuff and he Chris Gilliam: Mm. Derek Shell: took a little bit of a beating on his shoulder and that kinda put him out of the spring sports. But he's yeah, he's he's a heck of an athlete, heck of a kid. We're excited to see what he can do. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. Chris Whittaker: Good guy. I like talking to his dad. He he's funny. We get we get going. Derek Shell: Yeah, he he's he's been great for us too. Everett. So yeah. Chris Whittaker: Everett. Yep. Yep. Good dude. Shout out shout out to the Schnellenberger family. All right, coach. So we're gonna get into our main topic of discussion today. and the first thing that we're gonna talk about is our foundational programming and how we lay out training blocks. That one was good, Gilwin. You know that one good. That Chris Gilliam: Perfect timing. We're getting better. Chris Whittaker: one was good. High production value here, Coach Shell. How do you determine the optimal length of a training block for a high school athlete? Like how many weeks you go in? is your program based on the sports seasons? Like, how do you determine the optic optimal length of a training block for a high school athlete? Derek Shell: I you know, for for me a lot of the times it runs into the natural breaks that are in the season. Like we kinda break our summer up into two four week cycles. They're not it's not ideal, but we get around a four week cycle kind of in June, then we're off for the fourth of July. then we come back and we do you know, we have another four weeks before we start, you know, kind of our off season test or preseason testing for football. And then you kinda get into a the next cycle is gonna be longer. It's gonna be an in season phase where we lifting during school and stuff, or you know, we have a a two week during that two week two a day, it's gonna be a little bit lighter. But once we get into the powerlifting season for us, which is a week after football, that's what I tell the kids. you know, we're gonna run a break a cycle up until Christmas break. and then start another one, we come back and kind of plan a end of the meet, you know, I think last year was your meet, that was e the last meet of the season or that was northwest and kind of work backwards from there and and kinda see you know, where that natural break is in the in the season for us. Chris Whittaker: Okay. So kinda running it based around the the season, summer being its own kind of season in and of itself and building from there. Well Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: we wanna go we wanna go around, Coach Gill. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean I I think that's, you know, pretty common on things. I mean, I I always looked at it, you know, everybody's slightly different. I mean, depending on the program, you know, like I would go either a three week or a four week, you know, but l like Derek said, you know, in the summertime it's pretty much two four week things for sure. you know, once the school year starts, I mean, if you are a P teacher or if you are the strength coach for the school, so much easier to you know, to plan on things. And I personally when I taught trimesters a lot when I was really involved in it, and trimesters were perfect because they go with the sports seasons, fall, winter, spring, you know, and so our trimesters were basically twelve weeks long, roughly. So we just we would break it into three phases of four weeks each is typically how how we would break down our training cycles. and being with the conjugate system, that methodology, like the there was never like sometimes you had to deload, you know, but there was never no base phase because I always looked at it like I built that up in the summer kinda. You know, we're we're gonna keep training year round. and because you have your your max effort days and your dynamic effort days, like, you know, it's building in the rest and stuff and you know, the old linear block periodization stuff with multi sport athletes it's impossible because they're always in a new sport. So they Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: never get to benefit from like max and maxing out and giving max effort because they're always in a a building block phase if you go the old way, you know what I mean? So y you have to change your mindset, especially if you have a lot of three sport athletes, which I know Coach Shell has because that's pretty common at Napoleon and schools of that size, you know. but, you know, Coach Whitaker, you obviously you teach in all day long in the weight room. What what's your mindset on the blocks? Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Louis summons, yeah. Chris Whittaker: me to preach yet again from the Holy Bible according to Sir Lewis Simmons of the West Side of the Terrible Derek Shell: Is that Chris Whittaker: City of Columbus. three Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Chris Whittaker: week waves, three, four week waves. Right. We build up, you know, the max effort variants get changed, usually every week, but keep the same bar. We've talked about this on some of our previous shows, but it's max effort work is always there. Movements get changed. As we go through the cycle, sometimes the fourth week is a D-load where it comes out and it's a lot more rep effort work. Our in-season kids don't ever touch that fourth week of the wave. They'll do basically three weeks' worth of training over four weeks. so it works out nice. At a basically the turn of each month, we're able to change the bar and then do Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: new variants with a new bar, set new records, and then run speed cycles with. Either our new bar or the previous month's bar that we maxed out with. So our maxes are always up to date in the in the system as far as what they're able to handle, which makes our percentages a lot better. Then our accessory volume stays the same all throughout the year. Chris Gilliam: All right. So Coach Shell, multi sport high school athletes, do you do anything specific to sequence them? Like do you keep that Derek Shell: no. Chris Gilliam: in mind when you're doing their workout programs at all? Derek Shell: N not entirely. Now you gotta so I I don't run the strength and conditioning portion during the school day. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: I'm running I'm teaching high school math, mostly geometry. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: 'Cause you're a math teacher, yeah. Derek Shell: but as a you know my my b my good buddy, best friend Michael Blanchard is he runs it f he runs the weight room for us and you know, really it's gonna depend on the the coach and And what they want. Like our like some of our girls are gonna Friday, they're gonna our volleyball girls are gonna take it easier on a Friday if they have a tournament on Saturday. From a football coaching perspective, w I mean, I like our guys lifting on Fridays even though we have a game. I mean, you're gonna lift hours before the game. I tell them we're not training, you know W our whole goal of the whole season is not to win a game this Friday, it's to win a state championship Thanksgiving weekend. So we lift you know, the best season we ever had, we had a guy set the school record in on the deadlift on the Wednesday before we played in the regional championship. so we're not gonna do a lot with that. we're gonna train through most of that for The kids that I'm coaching anyways, some of the other sports have different philosophies on that. Chris Gilliam: Sure. Now so d the guy that's doing the the strength classes Derek Shell: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: during the school day, I'm sure you and him talk a lot because there's certain things you would w like to see your your athletes do for your sport and I'm sure the other coaches do the same. So do they follow the same sequence? Does the same sequence repeat during all these phases? Or is there always a progression going to a a certain point? Derek Shell: now he's not gonna run a a continued sequence. It's gonna be I believe it's gonna be pretty pretty mixed up variables. Chris Gilliam: Okay. Gotcha. All right, Coach Whitaker, how about yourself? I mean g give us a little take on you know, don't talk about the max effort and dynamic stuff, but how Chris Whittaker: That's what's gonna happen. Like that that's the way that's the way all these are gonna get answered because it's really that that simple, right? Like, how do we sequence the training blocks? Well, we're gonna go the max effort's always there, the speed work's always there. The one thing that changes is that we run two different special strengths on speed day. Explosive strength, speed strength. So explosive strength is fast, like point eight to one meter per second. So it's the fastest we're gonna move that. that bar and then we take it to speed strength, which is now a little bit heavier, so the bar moves a little bit slower, somewhere between point six and point eight, and we just keep flip flopping those two things each month. So if last month we did explosive bench, this month we're gonna do speed strength bench and also the bar is going to change. that's gonna Chris Gilliam: Okay. So do do you change the speed days based on the athletes and their sport? Chris Whittaker: No. No. The I Chris Gilliam: Okay. Chris Whittaker: Iron Dread program is a unified strength program. I I actually have an email that I have to respond to from a basketball coach. I know she won't listen to this. you know, about how how the hell can a girl's basketball player and a football player be doing the same thing in the weight room? because strength is strength, max strength. Two different speed strengths, building weak points, building work capacity through our training. Like, how is that not beneficial to every single sport and every single Chris Gilliam: Mm. Chris Whittaker: athlete that walks through the door? Derek Shell: Have you have you Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: run into the kids who don't wanna lift because they're worried that it's gonna affect their shot? Chris Whittaker: God. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: I I had the best the best argument I've I've had against the not lifting 'cause of basketball. It's like, well if you're not if you're not lifting, you're gonna be getting weaker. And if you're getting weaker, that's gonna affect your shot just as much as lifting is gonna and getting stronger is gonna affect your shot. So let's at least affect our shot in a positive way where we're gonna be better for the r the rest of the season. Like Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: 'Cause what they don't realize is is getting stronger is gonna ha make it where they can repeat that process again and again with less effort. Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I think the issue is, you know, the kids that think that and experience that is because they did nothing before their season and then when they're actually forced to strength train, it yeah, their body is tired, their body is sore. D will it affect their performance? You bet it will. But once you get in shape and your body is used to doing it all the time, like that I would always explain to you you think Michael Jordan he lifted every day 'cause When he didn't, the pistons were smacking him around. Chris Whittaker: Ha ha ha. Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: You know what I mean? And then he even said it on the last dance, like him and Scottie Pippen and all of them, they made a conscious effort to hit the weight room regularly, even during the season, even if it was a game day, because their bodies needed to be strong enough to take the abuse that they were gonna go through throughout a course of a season. You know, and so kids just don't understand that. It's like do your training and then go work on your craft. You know, but it that's just a mindset that's old school. I think it's getting less that way, but there's still people like that. It just happens. Derek Shell: We've we've gotten to a point where most of our kids are not getting, you know, that you know, that extreme soreness that you get from lifting when you are working muscles that you've never worked before. like I most of our, you know, their teenage kids you've most of them are lifting year round. We're we've been very good about that. But it's easier to get your, you know, two hundred athletes in there than it is to get, you know, six or seven hundred kids when you're at a bigger school. But Chris Gilliam: Yeah. for sure. But you know, once again, it's near impossible to have a specific workout for a specific sport. It's too complicated. The only Derek Shell: No, I mean it's that and that was Yeah. Chris Gilliam: way you could actually make that happen is if each sport had their own hour. Derek Shell: Yeah, that would be that would be awesome. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, then you could potentially do that, but I'm pretty sure the MHSAA says that that's not Chris Whittaker: That's illegal. Chris Gilliam: really that's Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: not really how you're supposed to do it, right? Derek Shell: I had this I had this idea for this amazing class called it independent advanced independent advanced PE or something where you would kids I don't think we'd ever get it in Napoleon, but Chris, maybe you could get it at your school or where kids get you know, if it's bas if it's you have a basketball kid in there, they put the gun up and they take a hundred or five hundred shots and the volleyball kids are hitting spikes with the little set machine and football kids are lifting and baseball kids are playing catch or something and you got Chris Whittaker: A sports specific class for multiple groups. Derek Shell: Yeah. Advanced Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: independent study physical education. Chris Gilliam: You would need based on that description, it would be near impossible because one teacher could not cover all those areas supervision wise. So you'd either have to pull para pros and all that or teachers and I don't see that ever happening. You know what I mean? But I do like the idea. I think that would be sweet. and maybe older kids would be able to like self govern themselves in those drills. Derek Shell: Yeah, it would have to be a junior, senior level. Independent studies. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Yeah, for Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: sure. Well, you know, maybe a a football studies class, right? Or history of football. Who's to say how the history goes? Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: How do the lessons plans lay out, you know? So yeah, that's pretty pretty interesting. Coach, you got the next one. Chris Whittaker: So we kinda talked about a few of these things already, like you know, how we shift the training block between you know developing maximal strength, hypertrophy, or power by based on the the sports calendar. you know, we mentioned that multi sport athletes never have a true off season. so kinda how do you guys rotate your are you a block? periodization type thing where you're working on specific things for three to four weeks or how how do you you might have mentioned it already and I missed it. but how do you guys structure your programming? I guess is the simplest way to put it. How you how you're periodizing your programming? Derek Shell: I mean we're gonna we're gonna not have a you know a primary focus on that. Like in the summer we're gonna spend a little bit more time early on with some hypertrophy stuff like in June and get then getting more to max max power in July. and then kinda sim kinda similar stuff in the w in in the winter during the powerlifting season when I have the kids. You know, Nov that late November early December is gonna be more hyp hypertrophy focused and then you know, s we're also, I mean, a lot of those kids that we're gonna be teaching how to how to lift for the first time, like some of those freshman and middle school kids who come over. they really don't want them doing max effort on their squats for a set of one on their second day of squatting. so we're gonna do do more higher higher you know, more hypertrophy based stuff and then Once we get into, you know, January and February we're gonna be more focused on power. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. So I mean basically you're just n it's it's linear periodization model. Right. Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: And that that hypertrophy block works well, especially when you're talking about when you're getting those new kids in and they need reps, that's where that works well right there. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, so Chris Whittaker: I mean we Chris Gilliam: would you say that you guys throughout the school year are introducing like hyp hypertrophy phases like multiple times throughout the year? Or is it just Derek Shell: I mean we we would do two in like the stuff that I'm in control of w I don't think we do a ton of a ton of that in our P E physical condition classes. We follow a similar I I mean similar to a like a VFS type of model for those for those guys. where we're doing a squat bench and a deadlift and then our athletic dri our past athletic dredger was big on clean so we'd throw cleans in there and I know that's not a not something that we test in powerlifting even though I have a couple of kids who wish we did. Chris Gilliam: Ha ha Derek Shell: but they're gonna they're gonna follow follow more of that model and then you know our our auxiliary reps are are are our yeah auxiliary exercises are gonna be you know, more hypertrophy based, but Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I for me, my you know, if I had like new students coming into a class, I would maybe focus on it the maybe part of their first phase, especially if I hadn't really ever seen in the weight room. but if they were kids I had in the past and they were regular attendees on stuff, the only time I really ever focused on it was in the summer. You know, 'cause once the school year started we were like conjugate. Like it's just we're we're rolling through all the muzzocycles and we're just kinda going back and forth 'cause you know, the the only thing I think I would change up periodically and this is where I'm know I'm different than how Whitaker would do it. Like I would change certain kids would have a speed day on the same day that another kid would have a max effort day. I would do that because of different sports during the school year. but I found it really hard to to manage, to be quite honest. And so that's just something I did and over time I found myself getting away from it because it was just too hard to manage, especially the bigger the classes got. Derek Shell: Good. And then how Chris Gilliam: and I know Whitaker's classes are huge, so Derek Shell: Yeah, how would it occur? How how big are your your slots during the day? Chris Whittaker: depends on the class period. Sometimes like we'll have a double period where you know Phil who retired now, shout out Phil Jacobs, my guy. He probably won't listen to this either. But we just we also just got Jesse Hoskins from Milan, so he's gonna be replacing Phil with me. So when we have the way our schedule works is we're a every other day class meeting block, so 90 minute block. And we flip flop and so we we see a different group on A Day as we do on B Day. So our first and fourth blocks are always our two double periods where we can take 70, 80 kids at a clip. You know, I think our our contract says 35 per teacher, right? Chris Gilliam: Teacher. Chris Whittaker: So that puts us where we can take up to 70. in the summer we'll do that like with varsity and JV football, you know, where there's from four to five kids a rack. So that's that's where we flip the calendar to half and half. So half starts their week on an upper body day, max effort upper, half starts their week on a max effort lower. They work through the two dynamic days in alternating fashion, and then they finish their week with the opposite max effort day. And that Derek Shell: So are you only seeing your kids two to three times a week? Chris Whittaker: During the and the class, yeah. Yep, in the class. Our power lifters, our off season football players, the requirement is four days. So that's where we have our before school and after school sessions for them to come in. So that that kind of messed up our good thing we had going when we had a six hour day and saw the same kids every day. 'Cause they're the only two groups that we have that train the full four day a week cycle every week. they never had to stay before school or after school. Derek Shell: We have the I'm just I'm just wondering when you had the one hour block, 'cause that's what we have. We get like fifty six minutes or fifty eight minutes, like getting a max effort in there and then hitting auxiliaries, you know, and a warm up and and all that, that's a how do you ma how do you manage doing that? And I don't know if Gillum if you've got, you know, an hour block to do that and that seems Chris Gilliam: Yeah, so I've taught both. I taught where I only had like the fifty six to fifty eight minutes. and then I had seventy two minute ones and I'll be honest, the seventy two minute ones were perfect. I think ninety can be too long, but not when you do it like Whitaker does, because he integrates body tempering in there and all these other extra things that I had no idea what to do with that type of stuff. So when you have the ninety minute block, there's more you could add in extra stuff. So I mean, the goal was what are we focusing on? So if it's max effort bench day, bench goes quicker than squat. I could probably squeeze Derek Shell: Yeah. I mean you Chris Gilliam: in a few more sets of the accessory work in on a bench day, but on a squat day in order to get certain th I had to decide. Am I gonna focus on two or three accessories or do I wanna foc if I wanna try and get five different accessories, well then I gotta eliminate the number of sets. And oftentimes you would just do one set, you know. and and it it would oftentimes turn into like a super set for kids. You know, but we use Derek Shell: Yeah, let's Chris Gilliam: a lot we use a lot of timers, like you got this many minutes to get your warm ups in, boom. When that buzzer goes, your warm-ups are done, it's time for work sets. And then I I'm I was more specific than maybe Whitaker is, but like I would all right, you got three minutes to get this work set in. At the end of that three minutes, everybody better be done with work set number one. Then the clock went again for the next three minutes. And so we kept them organized and it was down to the minute. Like when they got done. They had like six minutes left in class to go like change and get ready for the next class. Like, you know, and that was like they had to put stuff away. You know, and then there were some days they had ten, eleven minutes. So it's like, all right, do something extra you wanna do. That's when I let them like kind of choose some, you know. So but yeah, it it it seventy two minutes was perfect for for me. the fifty some minutes I had to take stuff out. You just had to change your programming. Yeah, you had to eliminate your accessory work. I mean, Chris, you've never taught with just fifty to sixty minutes, have you? Chris Whittaker: No, we have. That that's kinda how we started. Chris Gilliam: you have? Chris Whittaker: So like for the for the listeners at home that can't see it right now I got kind of an example of how we train and everything is broken down by time, right? So they and there's a time and there is a screen and we even control like in our warm ups, we do a potentiated warm up where they rotate through all the three different exercises trying to get twenty to thirty reps and winning style warm up. We can talk about that another time. But then That runs us into kind of our jump throw sprint period or mainlift period. So if I only had you know you know 50 minutes to do this, exactly what Gill I'm saying, that though that accessory time would Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: be the one that gets cut in to make it fit. but because we run our accessories on themes, you know, our weak areas, so we'd say, like, okay, hey, instead of doing six. Movements, maybe we're going to do you know three or four. You know, we do supersets, so four is probably easier. So like the first day of the week, they might hit the hip extension hamstring, the knee flexion hamstring exercise, the obliques, and then the vertical pull. Then we'd come back the next lower day for them, and they would hit the single leg variant and the A deductors and come back up here. Really, I'd probably keep the single leg variant. as the one that gets done both days and and mix up the other ones to be able to fit that time. You know, and that or you have it where you run it, the four like that, and then Wednesday is your conditioning slash, you know, whatever extra work day type thing. And then you can can mix that stuff up as far as what you're doing there to get more accessory volume in on that day. But But yeah, that's how that's Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: how I'd adjust our system to of of our class. Chris Gilliam: For sure. Yeah, I mean it it it's it's a science, you gotta get it down and like the kids gotta learn the process, you know, and so when they're younger, it's slower. Derek Shell: I mean it looks like Whitaker has it down to science. Chris Gilliam: yeah, whi Whitaker, I mean, it would be I would say, you know, I haven't seen them in action, but talking to them, I mean, if you ever go to a one of the major colleges 'cause they're limited with their time with the kids, like you go to University of Michigan, Michigan State. Those guys are in there and they're they're in and out in like an hour. Like and it's like nonstop. And they are sweating and they are screaming and they are working and they are moving from one thing to the next. It's like it's an hour of not it ain't the old fashioned let's do a set, hey, let's bull crap a little bit while we're waiting our rest period. It's nothing like that. Derek Shell: No, what do either of you guys with your after s your after school lifts, like do you run them more like that where there's where it's a little bit more relaxed? Yeah. Chris Whittaker: Nope, they're exactly the same. Chris Gilliam: No. 'Cause we got families and kids and stuff. Yeah. Now did I at one point in time? Yes, Derek, I did. Yeah. Derek Shell: I mean our our summer stuff is, you know, it's up t it's up temp and it's it's up tempo and we're screaming and hootin' hollering and there's music blasting and it's you know, and we're d we're timing that. My the after school lifting when we have our female lifters and the cross Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: country kids in there and you know, 'cause that's when we hold actually hold our actual power lifting practices a lot more relaxed and chilled because they you know, we have I've had multiple kids tell me they don't want a power lift because they don't want Coach Shell, you know, eight inches from their face screaming at and and Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: whatnot. I'm like, it's not like that. Like our our goal is to get you to push yourself and, you know, realize Chris Gilliam: Sure. Derek Shell: what you're capable of, but you know, it's it's a different it's a Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean Derek Shell: different animal for the after school stuff for us. Chris Gilliam: When I had smaller teams, probably reflected more like like yours, like you're talking about, as my teams got bigger, especially at Birch Run, and I had a hundred kids to get in a fourteen hundred square foot weight room, like we're sending them in, like I have half half the group doing other stuff outside of the gym. You know, the so they may have started with accessories. They might have been in the hallway doing walking lunges. And box jumps and things like that while the other kids were in getting their squad in and then they'd switch, you know, and so like 'cause your space, I mean, not everybody you know, Whitaker's got a kind of a small weight room for the size school he has. He's eventually getting one that reflects the size of his population. What's it gonna be? Seventy five hundred square feet, coach? You know, but like Chris Whittaker: Yep, seventy five hundred square feet. We're we're twenty five hundred right now. Chris Gilliam: and it's twenty five hundred right now? Yeah, I mean like I think your weight room might be bigger than his, doesn't it, Derek? Or close to the same? Derek Shell: Yeah, it might it might be we. Chris Whittaker: It is it is. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. So I mean like you guys have a great weight room, Derek, for your size school especially. You know, and and you got a lot of nice stuff in there. I mean, I I've seen it. but you know, it's one of those things like not every school has that, you know. You gotta keep in mind it's all about your resources too, what what you're gonna emphasize, especially with accessories. So all right, yeah, we that's good stuff talking about that right there. Well let me see where we Chris Whittaker: Exercise selection and weekly structure. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, let's go there. so with the foundational, you know, core lifts, you know, you said squat, bench, deadlift, and you guys also incorporate some power cleans or hang cleans or both. Derek Shell: a any variation of it. We do we do we'll do power cleans hang not during the what we call the actual power lifting season, but during the Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: during our our summer lifts, you know, we do a power clean and hang clean or we have a bar complex we call pirate clean, which is just just wrecks havoc on It's a deadlift or shru then you have to put the bar down, you do a shrug, then you do a high pull. Then you do a full clean into a squat over the head and then that's one. Chris Gilliam: No time. Derek Shell: But yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I like it. I like it. Yeah, I mean you d you don't have to train heavy on that because you're doing so many movements in one rep. Like that that can definitely fry their central nervous system doing all that. Yeah, that's awesome. so you know, the the you already kinda went over a variation. So like are there any bench or squat variations you guys use in your your program? Like you don't always just back squat, do ya? Derek Shell: No, no. I'm a big fan of front squats. I just fe yeah, I feel it's safer and you know, it's gonna be problem is we have kids who just refuse to, you know, set the bar on their shoulder or on their on their front rack position. But Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: you know, we'll do those. Pa I'm a big fan of paw squats. we I would love to do I'd love to have them doing box squats, but we don't have the ability to do, you know, we have fourteen, I think twelve or fourteen squat racks right now. We don't have twelve to fourteen boxes that we can get on. but yeah, those are the big ones that we'll use. front, paws, back and yeah, those are the those are the three big ones that we use. Chris Gilliam: Okay. Awesome. Good. Coach. Chris Whittaker: so before I do hey, and go down to your cafeteria ladies or cafeteria people and Chris Gilliam: Milk curtains. Chris Whittaker: ask them for some milk crates. Milk crate's a ten inch box. A standard twenty five pound bumper is about two inches. So that puts you at twelve. You know, forty five is roughly four inches, depending on it. And then that's how we would do that. Before we had boxes, two box squat width, we would put bumper plates on top of milk crates and we got a a lot of good work done with that. Derek Shell: That's kinda what I I've we have like one little platform. That's what I've been using when I train myself. Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: but yeah, the because we have those b the benches are just too high for for most of our kids. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Bench like n twenty inches, eight eighteen, twenty inches off off the ground. Chris Gilliam: You'd have to be like seven foot tall to get parallel on twenty inch. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Really really Derek, you need a a fourteen inch box, a sixteen inch box, a twelve inch box. I think we'll get a majority of the stuff if if that was a variation you wanted to add. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, but I the like the melt crate, like he mentioned, I used a lot of melt crates, especially with a lot of our female power lifters, 'cause the ten inch height was just right for them to to meet or exceed parallel. Derek Shell: Have you had any problem with the durability of those being able to hold up to four or five hundred pounds? Chris Gilliam: Well, we just did a t a tu a touch and go for the most part. We didn't really ever sit on You know what I mean? So w we would hover over Does that make sense? Now Derek Shell: Yeah, yeah. Now Louis would tell you to sit back on right, Crit, Mr. Whitaker? Chris Whittaker: Cor correct, correct. The Louis would tell you to sit back on Chris Gilliam: Yeah. And you and you can Chris Whittaker: him and then stop. Chris Gilliam: w we built too. I built boxes that were ten by by twelve by fourteen, and then we had twelve by fourteen by sixteen, and then we had fourteen by sixteen by eighteen ones. And so Derek Shell: So that's what I think one of the things that I'm gonna use for I talked I had emailed both of you guys about the the athletic boosters looking for ways Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: to support us. I think boxes and bands are gonna be the two of the big purchases Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: that we make. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. No, I there's so many different ways you can go, but like sometimes you just gotta get more bang for your buck. What's gonna benefit the most kids Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: when you get the extra money, you know? So even though that nice Chris Whittaker: What when it comes Chris Gilliam: one item would be cool to have, if it doesn't benefit that many kids is not necessarily the best thing to have. Derek Shell: Having one having one of an item is not very very useful. Like our we have a hex bar. Like I'd to do hex bar deadlifts, but if you've got one hex bar, I mean, Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Chris Whittaker: You can't program it. Derek Shell: you can't do much with it. Or like we have one safety Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean Derek Shell: safety rack or safety bar. Can't do a lot with that. Unless you have a kid with a bum shoulder. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. No, that's that's why I never got safety bars. The about the most expensive thing I would get, and it's only because I could get multiple of You know, I would got a lot of multi grip bars, both at Bertrand and at Adrian. So every platform we had had a multi grip bar as well. So that's how we would create variations for bench press. We didn't always use a straight bar. We used a multi grip bar. made it easier on the wrists because you could always do close grip with a better wrist angle on the kids. So I I like the multi grip bars is one of the things that I used a lot for bench. Chris Whittaker: And that box, that thing about the box breaking too, like to us, the way we teach a box squat, 80% of the weight is still on your feet. Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Chris Whittaker: Only about 20% of that weight is touching the box. So if they box squat, if you teach them to box squat correctly, I think we had one break, and that was when a kid was squatting with a yoke bar and let the yoke bar go off his back. Derek Shell: Huh. Chris Whittaker: And that's why the box got broken. Other than that, the Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: They're still we use for storage now 'cause we have the lead FTS adjustable boxes. Chris Gilliam: Well yeah. Plus the kids are bracing themselves, they're and their arms are holding the weight up, you know, they're locked in. Even when Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: they sit on that box, it's not a hundred percent of the weights on the box. So Chris Whittaker: No. No. but if we want to get back on topic here, my foundational core lifts, it's a squat, bench, and deadlift variation, specifically a wide stance box squat, a bench press and a variety of different bars, and a sumo deadlift, usually done for speed. then you could throw the accessory things where like we always have G H Rs, we always have reverse hypers in. so they can they're not core lifts per se, they're more accessory lifts, the G H R and the reverse hyper, but they always stay in our program. Derek Shell: Do you have a whole set of reverse hypers or are you rigging those up? Chris Whittaker: We have four. if I had to rig them up, we would do the bands from the top of the rack coming down to mimic that pattern. new room's gonna have enough for the whole whole side because we're still setting it where there's an upper side, a lower side to save on equipment. Right? That's what allowed us to do this, right? We have we have sixteen racks, we have enough bars for half of those racks. So when the upper Side is programmed with a fat bar. Well, we can't use that fat bar on the lower side at the same time because they're spread out. So the we mix up the order in which we program the bars that can be used on both sides, allows us to only have to buy half the room's worth of those. Same with bands and chains. We only use we have enough for half the room to be using chains. The other half the room is using bands. so with that we got four reverse hypers. We do a superset. If there's four people on the reverse hyper, then you go on the offset. So you're waiting your turn. Kidd if you're on the reverse hyper in front of me, Derek, all the other ones are filled. I'm standing there waiting. As soon as you finish your set, I'm jumping on. I'm putting my weight on and I'm jumping on and getting my set in. Because Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: I need to be done with my set before you or really your partner. rotates over to me. And that's how we make it work with only four reverse hypers. It'll be much better when we have a one for each rack. I think the weight selection suffers sometimes there because they just go, yeah, I'm gonna do Derek's weight. bilateral and unilateral work, Coach Gillum. Chris Gilliam: I like doing unilateral work especially with the younger kids, because they're not always the most graceful with their balance necessarily. and so I think it's important to do like lunges. I don't always do forward lunges, I do reverse lunges, you know, where you're stepping backwards. I do walking lunges. So I like that for the lower half. and I like doing dumbbell unilateral press either flat or inclined. You know, so I like doing those types of things because you know everybody has a strong arm, everybody has a weak arm, everybody has a strong leg, weak leg. You gotta do some unilateral work in there to try and make them as a whole better. but especially with high school kids like balance and awkwardness through gross spurts, like you know, it does you no good if you don't have great balance to be doing a bilateral movement. consistently, like because it kinda defeats the purpose, I think. That's just my own personal opinion. But once they got stuff mastered, you know, I still keep a balance of both in there. Derek Shell: I'm I we love lunges at Napoleon. we also will add in the Bulgarian sp split squats and the Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: single legged RDLs. and then step ups as well. But yeah. Chris Gilliam: Step ups, yeah, I like step ups a lot. Do you do those with dumbbells or with the barbell? Derek Shell: both. So Chris Gilliam: Okay. Derek Shell: a lot of the times like we'll a lot of times we'll have the younger kids do do like their bilateral work with a dumbbell just because I don't trust them to spot each other as much. Chris Gilliam: Sure. Derek Shell: and they're more prone to falling. It's easier to fall and catch yourself if you have a dumbbell than if you have a barbell on your back. but the yeah, the the step ups and the lunges. I think our my kids die a little inside every time I tell them we got Bulgarian split squats. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, honestly I if I do Bulgarian split squats, I cuss at myself that I'm making myself do 'cause I hate They're hard and I know the ki but you know, it's one of those things if you don't do some of the stuff yourself, you gotta have a reality check for yourself on what you're putting the kids through. Derek Shell: Yeah. Well I yeah. I I always feel better after I lun I mean I feel I feel like I'm gonna die, but I feel better after I've done lunges. Like walking lunges. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I I don't mind lunges and I don't mind step ups, but the Bulgarian split squat, I don't know what it is. It just fries my legs like big time. I've been trying to start doing them a little bit more frequently lately. And I just sit there and go, Yeah, I'm only doing one set today. 'Cause I'm not eighteen anymore, you know, I'm way up there. So I Derek Shell: We'll do Yeah. We'll do lunges with a dumbbell and hold it above our heads occasionally. Chris Gilliam: Okay. Derek Shell: that's another one. Chris Gilliam: engage the core a little bit more with that. Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Speaking of the step ups that you talked about, I never seen them in high school. Like my high school, we didn't even do back squat. We had a lot of leg press machines at my high school. and you know, we did bench press and we never did deadlift or anything like that. But we we had a bunch of different, you know, things that we did. But when I went to a recruiting trip to Colorado Springs for the Air Force Academy. We went through and watched them train and that's like an Olympic training headquarters out there. It's been that way forever. Coach Whitaker, that's the first time I ever saw like step ups and stuff like that. That Chris Whittaker: That pubs. Chris Gilliam: was like nineteen ninety. N I mean that's pretty commonplace now, but I had I have to think that they might have been like some of the front runners, those military academies with strength and conditioning stuff because they're training sports athletes but also soldiers. You know, they're I mean, I remember them doing these step ups with like lots of weight on the barbell. And Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: I was like, Holy smokes, you know. I I have always mainly done it with dumbbells with the high school kids. have you tried it with barbell at all or? Derek Shell: not not a ton of barbell step ups, but barbell split squats, definitely. Chris Gilliam: Okay. Gotcha. Coach Whittaker? Chris Whittaker: Yeah. well we're always gonna train a single leg variant on our accessory day. for the lower side and upper side we don't do it as frequently. Sometimes we'll throw dumbbells in there to build the unirolateral things or we'll we'll do s single arm sets within accessories. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: you know that that's kinda how we do it. Really more like if I see 'cause you can see the imbalance, right, when it happens with the bar. So if we get that kid that is got the hip shift in the squat or the big change in the in the bench. You know, I I I use even for the athletes, I use the squat, the bench and the deadlift as evaluators of weak points and technique flaws. Right. So if I cue it and I cue it and I cue it and I can't fix it, well now that's a technique that's a weakness that we need to develop to get them to be able to feel that. So that's where sometimes we'll we'll bring more of that in. Other than the accessories kind of thing. But yeah, that's how we kinda kinda program it. Those those step ups though, I wanna say that I saw some old Soviet footage. They they stole from the Russians, probably, Coach. Chris Gilliam: I'm I'm guessing, yeah. Chris Whittaker: They they stole from the Russians 'cause I w there is there's old Chris Gilliam: Well that'd be back you know, going back to when Coach Ferno talked to us, you know, and Todd Miller, like they were s lotta lot of stuff going on in the eighties and nineties and they were like s picking each other's brains at meets and stuff, you know, 'cause Russia was big into the strength sports, you know, they were kind of dominating. I'm sure there's other reasons that they're dominating, and that's why they're banned from the Olympics. Right. Yeah. They finally got caught. Yeah. Everybody's Chris Whittaker: Or did they just get caught? And the other ones haven't yet. Chris Gilliam: seen Rocky Four, right? We know what a bon Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Gago was doing. Come on. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Yeah. It couldn't be the training methods and the fact that it's communism and you live in barracks and you get told what you're gonna do, when you're gonna train, what you're gonna eat, and if you don't, good luck. Off to the gulag you go. Chris Gilliam: Coach Shell, are you f are you familiar with West Side barbell and the conjugate method? Derek Shell: yes, but only as of lately. So I really we hadn't been training really conjugate at Napoleon Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: in well yet. I kind of no, I'd I know who Louis Simmons was and I'd talked about him and then I actually was talking to Whitaker and my stuff I brought up Louis Louis Simmons to my assistant coach. And she had no idea who I was talking about. I was like, You gotta watch West Side versus the World. And Chris Gilliam: Mm. Derek Shell: then, you know, I went and we watched it and, you know, then around March I got the you know, had some time to start doing some more in depth person in more personalized training of myself and I've been trying to follow the the conjugate method, trying to push to a like a four hundred and five pound bench. Chris Gilliam: Nice. Derek Shell: and I've got on my I just finished up like my eighteenth weekend a conjugate method. So see. Chris Gilliam: Then z is it going good for you? Derek Shell: yeah, so yeah, finish it up. I just did three eighty five yesterday, so it's been it's been going really well. I'm up like sixty pounds in the last last eighteen weeks, so we'll see. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, proofs in the pudding, right? Derek Shell: Yeah. Figured I'm getting I'm getting old. I wanted to take it for a ride one more time. See if I could take it for a ride. Chris Gilliam: Well, that's perfect. We gotta throw this out to him 'cause he he, you know, joined us as we Chris Whittaker: Yeah, yeah. Chris Gilliam: ended the other podcast. So there's a bunch of us. So Ed Robinson I seen at Montrose at the end of June, he's the one of the South Lion coaches. Derek Shell: Okay. Chris Gilliam: He was he was lifting at the meet at Montrose. It was a U S P A meet. And so I was talking to him why he why he was, you know doing stuff and he's just hey it's put up or shut up right so he's like I can't tell these kids to do it and I you know talking to Denny Reinhardt and and Todd Miller and some of these guys I said you know what I need to get motivated and get training. I was in a funk doing the same thing all the time, not mixing it up. These guys got me fired up. So I'm gonna do a meet next summer and we in our last episode, you know, that we recorded I threw out the challenge. All the coaches in the MHS PLA. Let's meet in Montrose at the end of June next summer and let's compete in a full meet and let's have some garden. Derek Shell: I think we should get I think we could t you could turn this into a nice nice fundraiser for the association or somebody's program. All the coaches are lifting at this meet and just charge the entrance fee and Chris Gilliam: for sure. Derek Shell: like we I I think it could be a huge fundraiser, especially if you made the coaches wear s like the singlets. Chris Gilliam: yeah. Well we we have to if we lift USPA and stuff. So I mean I think we can probably work it out. Derek Shell: Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't Well, ten years ago I really looked into competing. I've never have you ever competed? Chris Gilliam: No, not in a me, no. Derek Shell: Whitaker? Chris Gilliam: Whitaker has. Derek Shell: Twice. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: twice. Derek Shell: I've never competed, but Chris Gilliam: Yeah, you and I'd be in the same boat. Like I've never competed a meet, you know. So I I'm gonna do it, you know. Hell, I've coached a lot of kids and put them in there. My two daughters have done it. I'm just trying to keep myself motivated and doing stuff and you know, I'm reminding myself every day like I'm not twenty some years old anymore. I gotta cut sets out and change things because I can't follow some of these workouts to the letter. Because my body just doesn't recover like it did when it was younger. You know, it just doesn't. So but yeah, w w we need to do it. I'm I'm throwing the gauntlet out there, Coach Shell. You know, we've be Derek Shell: Okay. A good date. Chris Gilliam: at these meets we'd be we could weigh the same body weight, but we're different ages, so we're gonna be in our own division anyway. Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: So it it could be fun. We'll get Coach Rule to join in maybe, you know, and get all these other guys. We'll Derek Shell: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Songest. Go to Michigan. Chris Gilliam: We'll pressure Whitaker, he'll do it. Whitaker'll do it. We just gotta make sure Chris Whittaker: Yeah, I'll I'll I'll get my ass kicked. The way I sleep, yeah, I'm I'm no recovering from shit. So I'll get my I'll get my ass kicked. But I'll I'll die. I'll go down on the sword. It's all right. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, but some of these guys, you know, like Bruce Edwards and Denny Reinhart, like, you know, they mostly do bench only for their competitions, you know, but I'm like, if I'm doing I'm going full, you know. Derek Shell: What would what what would Louie say, Chris? If you can't bench, there's no reason to be alive? Is that him or Ed Cohen? Chris Gilliam: And that sounds like odd to be honest. Chris Whittaker: if you couldn't Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: bench they had they had two p hundred pound plates welded on the bench bar at West Side. So if you couldn't start at two twenty five you were you couldn't mention that rack. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, another guy you need to listen to, because he comes from, you know, West Side, but he has a little different take is Dave Tate from Elite FTS. Derek Shell: Yeah. FTS stuff. Chris Whittaker: More Chris Gilliam: Yeah, 'cause he lifted with Louie and for Louie for a long time and then then he broke off. But I've I've had the pleasure of getting to meet him and talk to him in person along with Matt Rhodes and some of those guys that that were at the Heartbeat of West Side stuff back in the day. They got some really good good stories. you know. So all right, let's get back on task here. coach, I'm gonna get down to eleven there. How do you deal with the challenge of lower body fatigue during the season, Coach Shell? I mean, you know. Obviously you don't worry about it for powerlifting, but you do also coach track and you coach football. So y when your kids are starting to get fatigued with the lower body, how do you maintain their lower body strength without, you know, making them like fizzle out? Derek Shell: Yeah, I mean in foot for for football we we take football pretty light. I mean as far as at least my in my opinion, my assistant coach who played for us ten years ago would say, I mean, we're we're only on the field about in practicing for about an hour, forty minutes or hour and forty five minutes most days. So it it helps there. And then we're only on the I mean, we have two days of practice on the field and then we have our pregame and Monday is all classroom work for us. So we our kids stay pretty fresh and that's one of the things that I think helps us a lot. Chris Gilliam: So you you tailor the the sport is tailored to where usually the there's not an issue with leg fatigue for football. How about track kids? Derek Shell: Yeah. Track kids, that is that is the tough because the the thing that fatigues on them are those darn shin splints. and then then you you know, you you gotta basically almost come to a screeching halt. And I think for us one of the big things is we we have a lot of power lifters who do track and I I can't get them to move before the track season. Like I told a couple of kids who had shin splins the year before as a freshman, I'm like, go out, you know, just do a little bit of running, you know, the month before the season starts, 'cause you go from zero to a hundred. It's not so much for lower body fatigue for us as it is like just not the I guess maybe this fatigue Chris Gilliam: Not being ready. Derek Shell: is they're not they're not prepared for it. It's like well appar apparently I might not do a very good job. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, do you get a lot of kids with shin splints, Coach Whitaker at Dexter? Chris Whittaker: Yeah, mostly 'cause our track coaches beat the hell out of and they don't train. Derek Shell: See, we try to not try I try not to run very we're on we're off the track every day by four o'clock. And a lot of times our girls aren't on the track until three fifteen. Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. I always wondered 'cause I've coached track before too, you know, and you know what it's like in Michigan. You might be indoors and you're building for the first month. Derek Shell: And that's almost worse 'cause you got you know Chris Gilliam: you you're not even getting to run in the gym 'cause baseball and softball have it. You know what I mean? So you're Derek Shell: Now we have the Chris Gilliam: running in the the cafeteria and the hallways and that that's like the worst flooring you can run Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: on. But everybody's trying to get everybody in shape. I almost wonder if that's kind of what leads to and causes it sometimes. But Derek Shell: Yeah, I think it's a lot of them, you know, especially like we'll have a lot of kids who do winter sports and spring sport or sorry, fall and spring and they go from nothing in the winter and then get big they get bigger and stronger and older and then they go to, Hey, let's go sprint and they're not ready for it. I think it's the the zero to a hundred as far as running is Chris Gilliam: I gotcha. Yeah we Derek Shell: You don't have a very long season. It's not like you can build in for a month because, you know, you start you've got a week you know, we usually get a week or two in and then you have spring break and then you've got a month and it's time for regionals. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: You've got four weeks af five weeks after spring break before the regional championships. Like you don't have time to So build you know, s have a nice three week build up. So Chris Gilliam: Yeah, and I honestly it's like track coaches try and get in all these invites and replays. Like I bet they try and get two or three meets in a week. Derek Shell: Yeah, well, the Tuesday Friday meat structure is terrible for training too. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Yeah, I'm with ya. All right. Good. about twelve there code. Chris Whittaker: All right. About twelve. All right. So next thing is progression and testing. How do you measure progress at the end of the training block? Are you doing a traditional one rep max or are you doing submaximal testing? Derek Shell: We're doing we're doing max testing. like that's that's the number the kids want to see and at some point you owe that to the kids. Like and I love that as a football coach. Like I I I have a sheet on my computer that runs from twenty eighteen or twenty f twenty seventeen to now and I can see how much stronger is each kid and they love to see that. Or they like to compare themselves to their brothers. Like I had a kid who He was he was benching two forty five as a sophomore and his brother was doing one forty five as a senior. Like to to let let them know that. And then, you know, hey, you've Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: gained s you know, three hundred pounds on your total in the last year. Like that's huge. and the kids like that's one of the things I think our kids when we start doing conjugate stuff in the winter, they're gonna love that because you're you know, you're doing max effort all the time. Like that's the biggest thing for us is Getting kids not to max out every single day. Like, hey, we're doing sets of three today, not sets of one. Chris Whittaker: You're gonna give it enough to where maybe it scratches that itch and doing Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: different variations where now they can come back and break records and they can see that even sooner. That same thing happens very quickly, especially when you don't like rotate through a ton of different bars. Like you can get back to something in you know, probably the as little as six weeks come back around and and see something. So yeah. Chris Gilliam: For sure. Chris Whittaker: So I mean Coach Gillum, you and I have probab have talked about this a at length on many of the other shows, but kind of good training. Everybody everybody knows what Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: I'm gonna say. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. I mean you know, and Coach Whitaker's strictly that and and I'm mostly that. I'm not strictly that. I I will change and vary some things up because I I like certain things either personally or I've seen work. I like some undulating periodization, so very similar to conjugate, but it's slightly different. but I don't like it as a whole. I just like it as maybe part of a a cycle here and there. You know. we could talk about that off the show a little bit more because, you know, it's just something that, you know, I I've liked and found that it's useful for me personally and for other kids that I've trained. What do you think? You know, you're pretty new to this. You you even said that you're pretty new to it. So what's some of the common mistakes that you made and you think that other high school coaches make when creating a program for kids in powerlifting? You know, because it it's different, like you know, there's a different mindset with when it comes to training an athlete to train And then if you're trying to get the most out of them. in a sport specific thing, you know, like I don't know, like s squat, like you could squat a a house above parallel, but if you want to get below parallel like you have to in the sport, there's some things you gotta change up probably with some kids. Derek Shell: Yeah, I think One of the one of the biggest mistakes in the programming is just not not learning enough. Like I I should have learned more. Like I shouldn't be, you know, five weeks or five years into into this and not not knowing as much as I do now about the conjugate method. Yeah. I one of the things I wish I had done earlier is is gone and seen other power lifting coaches training. Like I tried I was gonna try and get out to see Whitaker one day, just in Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: a workout with child care last season. but I I think you know, when football and like when you coach football football is is different because you've got a staff of five people and there's football coaches everywhere and there's the big clinic you can go talk to people and There's hundreds of football coaches out there and and powerlifting it's outside of that, you know, November to well December to March window, like we're almost all on little islands up until you guys have started connecting us on here. It's like Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Derek Shell: you know outside yeah, outside of going and learning from you know, learning online or if you went and saw another coach, but you know, I I love Love Grass Lake and Ruler has been good to me, but I don't know how many secrets he wants to share with me when we're gonna see each other, you know, week two of the football season. Chris Gilliam: He he'll probably share the stuff that didn't work. Derek Shell: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: No. That that's not how Chris is built, but yeah, I'm with ya. Yeah, like I think it's hilarious that you talk about that, Derek, 'cause you know the you know, the secret sauce, you know, what what's you know what what it is for you. But you know, I think it's it's interesting 'cause I think a lot of other people have a similar mindset. Like instead of talking to that guy next to you in the next town over that you know is doing it because you play each other in football, you know It's probably is awkward to strike up those conversations when it comes to the Derek Shell: Well and the other the other thing in in other sports there's divisions, right? Like I can go talk Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: to Jay High and figure out how they're gonna cover trips and their nickel defense or whatever, Chris Gilliam: Yeah, 'cause you're not gonna play Derek Shell: the three four. But if I go even if I go to Dexter, my my super heavyweight's gotta compete against his super heavyweight at the ch at the state championship. Like he's Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: he doesn't wanna give me give me like, you know, the the s the special secret. Not that there is a special secret, but you know. Chris Gilliam: Right. Well think of it this way, Derek. You see the kids how they interact with each other, right? Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Are they helpful to each other? Derek Shell: Yeah. Well yeah, and I you know, I know like I could get help from anybody that I wanted to for the most part. But you also gotta find out who knows Chris Gilliam: Just a hesitant to do it, yeah. Derek Shell: their stuff. I've only been around five years. Is there's you gotta figure out does Whitaker really know his stuff or is he just blessed with a bunch of division one athletes over there at Dexter? like you it takes you a Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Well Derek Shell: couple of conversations and you know Got a meet a couple of couple of times but then a lot of those programs are just so far out there and I hate driving. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Derek Shell: Like that is I'd almost w the Chris Gilliam: yeah. Derek Shell: the driving to Meets is almost what killed Napoleon powerlifting 'cause I I hate driving, especially in the city. That trip to Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Derek Shell: that trip to Croswell Lexington a couple of years ago is almost the end of Napoleon powerlifting. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Well, hopefully we'll you know, being able to put out a schedule early now Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: helps you guys plan stuff out for your season. 'Cause I mean that's the hardest part as a coach in my opinion is finding like you had to figure out your meets and then like you already set up your program for the most part and then it's like, crap I the the meets don't line up with in the parts of the programming that I want, you know. And we're that's why we're trying to do the schedule early so you guys can it's easier to plan and coach accordingly. that's our goal at least. And so hopefully we'll we'll make that, you know. Now if you go to Croswell Lexington it's not 'cause you have to, it's 'cause you choose to. You know what I mean? So Derek Shell: Yeah. yeah. I mean that was a only went out there 'cause it was the state championship. Chris Gilliam: yeah, that that was the the J V one. The J V Derek Shell: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: state championship. Yeah. I gotcha. Okay. Was it my turn or yours, Chris? Chris Whittaker: Yeah, I don't know. We've gone on we've gone on so many tangents that but this one's been fun, right? Just being able to Chris Gilliam: yeah. Chris Whittaker: to talk a bunch about all kinds of different things. but the Chris Gilliam: i it w I was the last one 'cause I asked about the common mistakes. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. So how do you guys handle the bad day in the weight room, right? Like you're doing a heavy training block, the kid just doesn't have it in the tank that day. What adjustments are you making for that kid in that training day? Derek Shell: Talking about a kid has a bad day or I have a bad day. Chris Gilliam: Either way. Chris Whittaker: I have a lot of bad days too where it's you know, I'm sick of sick of talking to other humans that don't want to listen. Derek Shell: I think the the biggest thing for me is just to remind the kid and and remi I remind myself just show back up tomorrow. Like that's the you know, if you have a bad day, just you know, I haven't ever had I haven't had a lot of, you know, multiple bad days in a row. But you know, a lot of the times, you know, in a small school like Napoleon, like I know if something's going on with the kid, you know. And it's e it's easy to know like, hey, you d you d you didn't sleep well last night, like you had you just bombed the geometry test and you know you you b you're you're playing your dual sporting, you're playing basketball, you just had two games in a row and now you're trying to lift like we n we know at a s at a school our size, like what's all the times what's going on with the kid and the the important part is getting them to understand, you know, how that affects it. I think one of the big things is A lot of the times our kids have bad days when they're trying to cut weight to make a weight. It's like like you just you just dropped eight pounds in the last two weeks. Of of course you're not you're not gonna be as strong. You're just you know for s for someone like like me, it's eight pounds is like, you know, two percent of your body weight, but for you know, a hundred and forty pound girl that's a that's a big portion of their body weight and it's is gonna affect their lifts and getting them to understand that. And then let Making sure they understand that that's not going to necessarily be the best bet is to lose a bunch of weight to to try and to try and perform better. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, so your focus with them is to make them realize, you know, keep things in perspective. keep in mind that these are all things that are factors in what what's going on and they won't keep lasting. That Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: kind of thing. Okay, gotcha. you know, so I I don't see I think probably a lot of people can do that, especially when you're in a more smaller, you know, community where you you you know, you're Like you, you're coaching three different sports. Some of those kids, they have you all day long, plus they have you as a teacher, so you you know each other pretty well, right? Yeah. Pretty easy to gauge that stuff. you know, so for me when I looked at kids that were like coach, you know, today's not a good day. I don't think I'm gonna be able to get my reps or sets, you know. So it's like, okay, is that because your warm ups weights were s Heart or struggling? Is that is that why you're telling me that? Because, you know, you're trying to diagnose it, you know. It probably is that Matt Test or a girlfriend or something like that too, you know, but like you I'm not gonna give the day off. I don't think Whitaker gives them the day off either. And so it's like, all right, so what are we gonna do? All right, we can adjust your warm ups a little bit, we can change things up, we can drop the load. Like, you know, maybe you're not gonna you're Even though it's a max effort day, you know, maybe you're not gonna be at that actual prescribed amount today and we'll adjust that load a little bit. maybe we don't adjust the load, but we adjust the volume. You know, there's different things. We can cut the set volume. That's probably the number one thing I always did. we're not gonna do five sets of three, let's just do three sets of three and get you through there and go from there. I don't know. Do you do Whitaker have you ever like swapped dumbbells for in place of the barbell on stuff sometimes? Chris Whittaker: All the time. you Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: know, you a lot of it's when we're working around the injuries. if fatigue Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: is the actual issue, right first we try to like go warm up and we'll go from there. Sometimes you can like coax them into it and it's really more of a mental thing than it is a physical thing. but if you just watch how they perform, like it's all right, hey. We're doing a lower day today, grab that sled and Now you're gonna take recovery laps. The next twenty minutes you're gonna throw a quarter on that sled and you're gonna keep walking. It's gonna help the recovery thing. changing Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: movements to work around, you know, tight back, shoulder, elbow, whatever it is. Like Yeah, we change we change movements all the time, and I think that's the beauty of conjugate is that that you can kinda if it fits in the fact where you can change the movement and still get the same training stimulus if you really want to. And if it real and if the kid can give it to you. That you can Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean honestly it to me the conjugate like it's just built in. Usually you don't run into it very often, but like you have all these accessories kind of available to you. You have a larger toolbox, you know, because it it's super easy to put in a a different squat variation for the day, especially if it's a speed day. Like I I I I had a hard time doing it on max effort days. I would rather cut the load or the volume, but still keep the bar on their back or whatever. But I on a dynamic day, a speed day, I had no problem just switching accessories around and changing it. But they're built in like a every three to four weeks you should be changing your accessories anyway. You know, so because of that, it you tend to avoid those things. Going back to the question I asked you before, from my experience with what I see first or newer powerlifting coaches making, 'cause I made when I first started, I think the number one thing when I talk to people is the the more is better mindset. Like I think that's one of the top mistakes that new coaches make, you know. You you can look up all these different training programs and and learn and understand them scientifically. But until they're put into place, y you I think people get need to remember some of these programs were designed by guys in their prime peak phase of their life. Not for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old kids. You know what I mean? I Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: don't think, you know. A bunch of sets is always the best answer, you know, on different things. I think sometimes new coaches, 'cause they stick with five by five, three by three, five by three, you know, nothing wrong with the the that mentality. But in the sport of powerlifting, you're gonna plateau very quickly and often. You have to have wave periodization with your sets and rep you it's gotta continuously change. And I find that sometimes the newer coaches, like they're just kind of following that Nebraska Corn Husker or BFS system, you know, and it's it's great, it works, but not in the sport of powerlifting necessarily. and then I don't think everybody understands how a D load week should actually work either. You know, 'cause there there's multiple ways to delo and it it's not a cut and dry way, but I don't think a delo week is not a week off. Some people. it's the state meet. We're we're not even gonna lift this week. What? Like you're tak giving them the whole week off That's not how you should be doing it. That's once again, that's my my way of understanding. But you know, I think those are the common things that I I listen to and talk to coaches. And I just you know, those are the common ones, especially when they're first getting into it. 'Cause they don't know any different until they talk to people, you know. And we we even Whitaker and I found out like, you know, Denny Reinhardt and them, like there's they're doing their max the the the day the week of the meet. Like on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I wouldn't do that personally myself, but I can't argue with that it works. They've coached a lot of state champs and record breakers, and they themselves have done it. You know what I mean? So, you know, but so there's so many different ways to do things. But I find that A lot of people deload like the week of the state meet. And I don't I don't know. I just I think s young coaches do that, inexperienced coaches. All right, speed round coach. We'll have you started. Chris Whittaker: Speed round. Last thing we got for Coach Shell here, the speed round. All right. So which do you prefer? Squat, bench press, or deadlift? Derek Shell: Bench. Chris Gilliam: Are you a high bar or low bar squatter? Derek Shell: Lobar. Chris Whittaker: Conventional or sumo deadlift. Derek Shell: Conventional. Chris Gilliam: What's your favorite accessory exercise for the squat? Derek Shell: RDLs. Chris Whittaker: Favorite accessory exercise for the bench press. Derek Shell: I'm gonna go skull crushers. Chris Gilliam: I like all right, and favorite accessory for the deadlift. Derek Shell: RDLs. Chris Gilliam: multifaceted RDLs. I love it. All right. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, they're they're good for a lot of different things. A great hinge movement. So yeah, perfect. All right. any shout outs you want to give to like any assistant coaches? you know what what's the name of the your your coach that actually teaches the classes? Yeah. Okay. Derek Shell: that's Michael Blanchard. he's he's runs our strength program for us during the day. He's one of my assistant coaches in football. He does our D Bs. He's been blowing up my phone while I'm been on here with you guys talking football. and then Coach Burgess is our assistant coach. her whole family has been great in getting powerlifting kind of legitimized. at Napoleon. She's been a her family's been a big push to you know, getting the ho getting the meat at home. They are the ones who log on and attend the clinic. I even think they came to the in person one at in person one at Dexter. so just the whole Alexa Burgess is my assistant coach. And then Michelle and Adam are her parents who've been big help. And then of course My wife who put the kids to bed so I could be on, Christina. Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. You and Whitaker in the same boat on that side. I'm past those days, thankfully. but I do kind of mess them too. Derek Shell: Yeah. How old your oldest Whitaker? Chris Whittaker: Oldest is four, the second one is one and they've ha come in multiple times during this. So that's he shut the door but she can l figure out how to open it now. Derek Shell: sh the four year olds escape in the crib. Chris Whittaker: The the four year old is is in a bed and she's been in a a bed already. It's the it's the one year old that has no boundaries anymore. You know, she's all over. Derek Shell: got a three year old who can't get out of the crib yet, so she can't open the door she can't he can't open the get out of the crib or open the door, but Chris Whittaker: That's good then you get to sleep. And then they don't wind up Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: at they don't wind up at at your door, you know, at three in the morning saying they hear footsteps in the in the back side of the house. Yeah. That that was about two thirty this morning for us, guys. Chris Gilliam: yeah. Chris Whittaker: So so anything we didn't discuss, Derek, that you'd like to bring to our listening audience? Derek Shell: I guess if you're getting started in the sport of powerlifting or thinking about starting a you know, a team, just you know, there are tons of resources out out there. Talk to Chris or Chris or Chris. you know, those those those three people were huge for me. the what getting getting teams and programs and registered and everything, there are there are tons of people out there to to help you with that, just just reach out. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. Coach Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: Gillum, any final thoughts? Chris Gilliam: Nah, I appreciate you being on here, Derek. known you probably for about s eight, nine years. That was when I f about two thousand nineteen we started doing some stuff football, right? Right around Derek Shell: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: there. So, yeah, known him and got to know a little bit more over the years. So I appreciate you being with us. I know you've had a great success with your football program over the years. and I You've got some individual power lifters that have done some great things and as the numbers grow your team continues to get better. 'Cause you know what it's like. Competition breeds competition breeds success. And I see your powerlifting program heading in that direction to where, you know, Derek Shell: I do. Chris Gilliam: they're gonna be formidable and it's great. That's because of the kids, the parents and yourself. So Congrats on all that stuff. Continued good luck and we appreciate you being with us. Derek Shell: Thank you. Chris Whittaker: This has been another episode of the platform where the stories weigh a ton. That does it for another episode of the platform here, folks. Huge thank you to Coach Derek Shell from Napoleon High School for joining Coach Dillon with me, sharing his experiences in building a powerlifting program and developing multi-sport athletes. It's been great watching what Derek and the people at Napoleon have built over the last several years, going from just eight lifters in 2021 to a program of roughly 50 to 60 athletes, becoming one of the school's largest athletic programs and awarding their first varsity letters last year. That's something to be proud of. And I think one of the biggest takeaways from today's conversation is that there isn't just one perfect training program for every school or every athlete. Whether you're using a traditional training block, linear periodization, the conjugate method, or some combination of those approaches, you gotta understand your athletes, the demands of their sports, the resources available to you, and most importantly, what they can actually recover from. I also really appreciated Derek's message about learning from other coaches. Don't be afraid to ask questions, visit another program, share ideas, and continue developing your knowledge. That's one of the reasons we started the platform in the first place, was to connect our Michigan High School powerlifting community and help all of us become better coaches. And speaking of continuing to learn, we've got several important announcements as we prepare for the 2026-2027 MHS PLA season. First, Coach Mick Lusk from Troy Athens is hosting a coaching clinic. We alluded to it in the intro. Nick has been a guest on the platform multiple times. And we are always excited to see coaches talking and taking the initiative to share knowledge and help grow within our sport. we've shared information about his clinic on our MHS PLA social media pages, specifically our Instagram page. So make sure you check out the announcement and details. and while we're talking about coaching and education, the MHS PLA will be holding virtual coaches meeting on Saturday, December 5th. We'll be covering the upcoming season's rule changes, the registration process. And other important information coaches need to know before competition begins. Coach registration for the 26th-27th season is also available on the MHSPLA website. So make sure you get yourself registered and take care of that before the season gets underway. Another reminder: the nominations are officially open for the inaugural Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Hall of Fame. This is something that we're extremely excited about. And throughout our conversations on this podcast, we've heard from so many stories. About the coaches, athletes, and contributors who helped build this association into what it is today. And we can't wait to honor them. Now, we're going to have to have a formal way to recognize those people, and we are accepting nominations in three categories. Former lifters must have graduated 2021 or earlier. Coaches must have at least 10 years of active coaching experience within the MHSBLA. And contributors must have at least 15 years of active involvement with the association. Five member selection committee will review the nominations and recommend the top ten candidates to the board of directors, which will select three to five individuals each induction year. The inaugural class will be honored this year at the evening before the varsity state meet and recognized between the women's varsity and the men's varsity state championships the following day. If you know somebody that deserves recognition for what they've done for Michigan High School powerlifting, we encourage you to review the criteria and submit nomination. Also, don't forget, during the upcoming powerlifting season, the platform will be bringing you new episodes every Wednesday evening. We'll be recapping the previous week's regional meets, recognizing division champions and outstanding performances, and talking with meet directors about what happened on their platforms that weekend. So make sure you're subscribed to the show. Wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a rating and review, and share these episodes with the fellow at fellow coaches, athletes, families, and anyone who loves Michigan High School powerlifting. Finally, if you want to support, hit up that MHS PLA fourth wall shop. MHSPLA.fourthwall dot com. Get yourself some MHS PLA and platform gear and represent the MHS PLA and the platform at a regional meet or anywhere you go this year. Once again, huge thank you to Coach Derek Show, his assistant coaches, and everybody involved in Napoleon Powerlifting for everything they're doing to grow the sport. Until next time, keep coaching, keep learning. Keep building stronger athletes and keep loading the bar. This has been an episode of the platform where the stories weigh a time.