Happy Tuesday in May!
We are nearing the end of the school year and hitting the end of spring sports seasons.  Track and boys golf have their conference meets this week.  I wish them best of luck to go out and compete at a very high level and do their best. 
I wrote about speed last time.  We've seen an uptick in attendance after we've started our offseason competition but we still aren't where we should be at if we want to be an elite program.  Part of the reason is we aren't unified in all sports and programs.  When you look at the elite programs across the state they aren't good in only one sport.  They are very good in multiple sports.  Why is that?  Unified strength and conditioning.  They are all on the same page with lifting multiple times a week in and out of season.  They do speed training.  From the moment they start as freshman until they graduate they work on improving their strength and speed in and out of season.  We have protocols in place for in season athletes so that they can still get stronger while they compete in season.  
Some of kids have made the dedication to improve in and out of season by doing more.  Some of our athletes are putting in extra work to improve themselves and the team.  I want to thank them.   We now have one kid in the 20mph range and four others in the 19 mph range.  It is our hopes that we have over 6 kids in the 19-20 mph range when we kick off in August.  Speed is the tide that raises all boats.  You can scheme against strength but not speed in a football game.  
We will be having a max out week coming up towards the end of the month.  I am looking forward to seeing how much the workouts are paying off for those that have been consistent.  This should be a rewarding day for those that have done the work. 
For those before us, those of us now, and those that follow, WE ARE WMU!

A main priority of our coaching staff and our training this past offseason has been speed training.  We are working on improving our speed overall.  Speed is the tide that raises all boats. 
Sprints are the best exercise we can do to improve our agility, explosiveness, max speed and sub max speed.  Sprints are more effective in gaining strength that squats, they are the best core workout, and best plyometric workout as well.  As we get closer to the season we are going to work on improving our sprint capacity.  Which is how many times can we replicate our max speed back to back to back.  We want to be able to be at 19 MPH to start the game and 19 MPH to finish the game.  
Here is a screen shot of our data that we are keeping for our guys.  They can see that by how fast they run depends on the color they get.  The color represents a MPH.  Our goal is to have as many 18 MPH players as possible.  I would like to think that going into the 2021 season we could have at least 5 players in that MPH range.  If we look at the teams that beat us last year they are all faster than we were.  Not stronger.  Getting strong is an easy fix.  Strength grows like a weed.  Speed grows like a tree.  We need our guys to put in the work and get faster by being consistent in their workouts and attendance.  Many people think that running hinders jumping ability.  This is false.  Sprinting improves jumping ability.  Long slow jogs, or running a 200 4 times at 75% hinders jumping ability.  Sprinting is the holy grail of exercises.  
The guys we've had be consistent have shown growth in their speed and I look for them to continue to get faster.  If we aren't training sprints to get faster, we're getting slower. 
For those before us, those of us now, and those that follow, WE ARE WMU!
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Good Wednesday to everyone in Wolves Nation, 
I am reading a book and the chapter just discussed the Do Something principle.  What this means is that most times people wait for motivation before they start to act on their goals or tasks.  What the Do Something principle stands for is just start doing something small everyday and you will get motivation.  Action creates the motivation, not the other way around.  Take a read, thank you guys and lets keep improving!
For those before us, those of us now, and those that follow, WE ARE WMU!
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Welcome back to the WMU football blog.  We've been away for a while.  I am going to attach a file for everyone to read.  
Our football athletes that are participating in winter athletics are having nice seasons.  Our wrestlers are seeing improvement and our boys basketball team continues to compete game in and game out. 
The following file is about consistent work over time.  An idea founded on Brian Kight's Daily Discipline email.  Make the choice to be consistent in simple but meaningful work and the improvement can be vast.  
For those before us, those of us now, and those that follow, WE ARE WMU!
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We are at the end of November.  Lots of things going on in our world with COVID still running rampant and school being in session.  We have our winter sports getting started soon with plenty of WMU FB athletes playing basketball or are out for wrestling.  I look forward to our guys competing this offseason in their respective sports. 
One thing that can't be forgotten about is getting stronger physically in the winter seasons.  For the last four-five years we've had our basketball and wrestlers not attend winter workouts.  In order to get to the expectations that we all have for these young athletes we are going to need to turn that around.  We have not had particularly great attendance from the end of the season until Thanksgiving break.  Kids that said that they were going to workout haven't attended at all or have been to very few sessions.  We all know that athletes don't get better as they get older by just getting older.  Our athletes need to continue to compete in their sport and work on improving themselves physically in their seasons as well.  As a coaching staff we won't "Burn the steak" while training, especially if you are in season.  We are going to monitor what's going on through communication and paying attention to your times and lifts.  Just like during our season we don't want guys getting burned out doing other things, we feel the same way in our off season. 
We are averaging about eight athletes combined in two training sessions.  We offer a morning session for guys that maybe have basketball or wrestling after school and we offer an after school session for our guys that don't have a winter activity right now.  The idea is that our guys can get trained up three days a week.  If you are in season and you feel that two days is good enough and we can reach a compromise and figure something out.  

In different news we were able to have a few guys earn some post season awards.  In our District 4 8 man Jack Jennings was 1st team Defensive Line, Chance Malone 1st team Offensive Line, and Cam Buffington 1st team punter.  We had two guys earn 2nd team in Noah Sparrow and Bryce Wade.  Seth Schurr and Abram Edwards were Honorable Mention for us.  
Cam Buffington was also an 3rd team All-state selection for us as a punter.  
All of those are nice awards for our athletes.
We look forward to working with our athletes in the workout sessions and after our winter break we will be working on some skill work as well for our guys.  OL steps, QB throwing mechanics, QB/RB mesh, QB/WR routes, etc.  There will be some time for guys to work as we continue through our offseason.  
If we want to get where the expectations are at from coaching staff, parents, and some players, than we need to step up our game and show up and show out at workouts.