Ryan Lee:

Hi everybody this is Ryan Lee at http://www.SportSpecific.com. Today on the phone I have a very special guest Al Vermeil. For those of you who dont know, Al Vermeil has been a strength coach, in strength and conditioning for a long time. Hes actually worked with all three major sports. In baseball with the White Socks - Football with the Forty-niners. Basketball with the Bulls, as he served as a consultant for them. He still serves as a consultant with the Bulls. And hes the only strength coach to actually win championships with two different major sports - with football with the Forty-niners and basketball with the Bulls. He also has a video called Success through Training. You can find that at http://www.performbetter.com. He also has trained athletes at all different

levels. He does a lot of stuff with high schools now. He runs in services. So if you want information about some of those in services and seminars. You can contact Al directly at avermeil@mw.sisna.com. Again thats avermeil@mw.sisna.com Im going to give you that information again at the end of the interview. And today Al and I are going to talk about just his general training philosophies. Whats worked well with his athletes? How some things you got to take with your athletes now. So without further ado. Al welcome. Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee: Thank you. Thanks for being here. First, just tell us a little bit about your background. I know I

covered it. But how you got involved in strength and conditioning. Al Vermeil: Well I come from a very athletic family. My Dad was an athlete and coached football until they found out he didnt have a credential. Im sure youre very familiar with my brother, Dick Vermeil hes now the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. And my brother Stan played football. And their high school football coach, in 53 and 54, a very close friend of the family a gentleman by the name of Bill Woods. When Dick was finishing college and I was a freshman in high school the family decided, well, If youre going to play college football, youre not going to be big enough. So Coach Woods came up and my folks gave me a set of weights that Christmas. So told

me what I was to do and showed me how to do it. So I started lifting weights and when I was a freshman in high school. The exact day I actually stated my first workout on my own was January 7th, 1960. I lifted all through high school. And then I went to junior college. And played for Dick at Napa JC and then I went to Utah State and played three years there. I coached high school football. And when I started coaching high school football the gentleman that I worked for said, Al, youve lifted weights so you run the off season program. That was in, I was in Oregonville, California at Casaromi High School and then from there I went to Morrow High School and ran the off-season program. Obviously I was the head coach then. And I knew of Bill Walsh for a long time. He, when

he went to the Forty-niners, called me and offered me a job and then I worked for him for four years. Started my own business. Then got involved with the White Socks and Bulls. And basically the rest is history. So, the whole thing was as a young athlete I was only 5 8 and as a freshman I was only 55 and 130 pounds, so I had to get stronger and more performance so I started lifting weights. And then when I got out of college, had the responsibility of other people, I realized there was a lot more to it in terms of technique. Theres more than just lifting weights. Theres, in terms of, then the plyometrics came in. And before that into learning to teach the power version of the Olympic lifts; learning drills and all through this I made friends with a lot of very bright coaches.

Gentlemen like Don Chu was probably the best plyometric jumps coach in the country. Don coached at CAL State Hayward for a long time. And at one time had coached more 7-foot high jumpers than anybody in America than schools had scholarships. Then Johnsons coach is a good friend of mine. I learned a lot about sprinting from Charlie Francis. The United States weight lifting Coach Desrosiers. I could go on and on. Sports scientists like Professor Sitorsky at Penn Sate. So I brought in all these very bright people. And I had a philosophy and just kept learning and right now Im really involved in learning all about the stabilization and I went out to Denver which is an excellent place, and I dont have the web-site address right off the tip of my tongue, but

theres a gentlemen out there that does a great job giving seminars. Pete Emerson in manual physical therapy. And they have a website. So Ive just been exposed to a lot of bright people and theyve been kind to share the information. And from this Ive evolved my own training philosophy. Ryan Lee: And I guess my next question would be, its a good transition. What is your training philosophy? Youve said how things evolved over the decades strength and conditioning. And we see the changes that are happening. What do you think is your overall philosophy now? Al Vermeil: I think my overall philosophy is not to use very many gimmicks. Im not a gimmick person. In other words I believe in this

statement: a simplicity of tools use complexity of use. In other words, if youre using a medicine ball, like the ball that I use which is outstanding, then take for them -if we use Olympic barbell. We use dumbbells. Well use some hurdles; some blocks to jump up on. Ive developed these very nice blocks, theyre really great for landing, theyre not wood to jump up on and doing plyometrics on. Out of a Illinois a placed called Crown

Mets and Ive worked on. Its then the responsibility of the coach to teach the technique as opposed buying a million dollar machine, a very complex machine but a very simple use. I dont think machines have any place in training. Ive never seen an athlete sit down yet and make a tackle; hit a home run; score a basket; spike a volley ball.

Whatever you want. And what machines do is they do not require the athlete to control the weight or control the motion. So you dont utilize the stabilizing motion, plus you use a single joint motion. And the body is trained to work in multi-joints. If it was trained to work in single joints and not multi-joints, we would walk kind of like a robot, like Frankenstein the monster. So when you train like that, you really be training the nervous system. Youre training the wrong way. I believe that you have to prepare people. You dont just start lifting. You have to have some mobility in your hips - some core strength. You have to have good posture and were now in the backpack generation and the most obese generation ever in the United States history. So we have to do a lot more

conditioning with the medicine ball again. I really love that because the medicine ball you can move multiple planes. So youre training rotational and diagonal patterns. Once you develop that, well go into doing squats. Which now everyone accepts are good for you. And all of us knew that a long time ago because if squatting was bad for you we would have bad knees from the time we were 5 from going to the bathroom. But it took the medical community forever to learn that. So we do some basic squats. What we call Olympic pulls - Teaching pulling motion and pressing. And then we develop into our power cleans and power snatch. Then you go into your jump drills, your plyometrics and then eventually spinning.

Ryan Lee:

Sounds like a good, solid program. When you were saying squats. I hear so many different trainers and coaches have different ideas for squats. Whats your personal philosophy in terms of barbells versus dumbbells; versus heel lifts vs. no heel lifts. Front squats. Back squats.

Al Vermeil:

I think you use a multitude. I think first of all you have to have variety. The body gets used to doing one thing. So I think you back squat. Front squat. Lunges. Dumbbells the whole gamut. If youre working with real young kids holding dumbbells in their hands, you dont load their spines. I do not like what I see, kids being advanced too soon. So I think you have to look, but when you work with an advanced athlete, I think you have to

vary the exercise to get the stimulus. In terms of heal lifts I lift in lifting shoes. It does help. Thats why all those Olympic lifters use them. At the Bulls when we had a consistent roster we bought some great big lifting shoes so our guys could lift them. But its not critical. I think in terms of heal lifts youd like get peoples Achilles met and calf loose enough, a little small block under there, thats what I used to lift on as a kid, its no big deal. Ryan Lee: Now you had mentioned before machines. Single joint and remember when I was in high school and college we trained a lot with the machines. We did seated leg curls, lying hamstring curls and leg extensions. What about some of the newer machines that are

out? Like the free motion? Some of these functional side back machines? Al Vermeil: Let me ask you this. Youve already said they try to throw the name functional because theyre trying to do something thats already being re-developed. You have to understand the difference. My philosophy comes from Eastern Europe. Why do you have to keep re-inventing something? What Im saying to you is its the eye of the coach; its not the piece of equipment. Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: No. I agree. The machines make everybody a coach. And what I call them, no theyre supervisors. I want to see them come in and teach a power clean. I want to see them teach *****. I want to see them teach running drills.

Thats what coaching is. And one of the great advantages that Ive had over a lot of coaches and personal trainers is that Ive coached football. Ive coached it at a high level. I did work a little bit with the offensive line of the Forty-niners. Ive coached track and field. Ive coached throwers that threw over 50 feet. Ive coached runners that ran under 11 flat, for 100 meters in high school. So you learn to have to train an eye. Biomechanics. Motion. Sport is motion, then why do you want to get in a machine that doesnt require motion. Its very common sense. And one of the words thats used today, one of the big buzzwords, is sports specific. The only specific thing related to sports is playing it and practicing. You cannot duplicate playing football. Ive

coached and played a lot of it anyway. You cant duplicate playing basketball. Exercises that we do may be related to the game. We may train a specific component, like explosive power. For example, I train an offensive/defensive Im a football player and Im teaching to do a power clean or a repeat long jump sub-series. Thats explosive power. He does use that in the game. But he doesnt have his pads on and at the end of that lifter, at the end of the jump; hes not hitting anybody. So cannot be specific. And I beg to differ with many of these people that are selling themselves as specific trainers and the only thing thats specific and thats play. And thats just a fact of life.

Ryan Lee:

Now how do you, speaking of training programs and designing programs, whats your philosophy in terms of off season, versus pre-season, versus in season?

Al Vermeil

I think first of all I think in the off-season you have to have a transition back into training. The longer the athletes been out of training, the more gradual the transitions got to be. And then but I think in terms of your off season spent most preparing. And what I see being done in the business, and Ive been involved in strength and conditioning a long time, Ive been a full time strength and conditioning coach 24 years, I see a lot of people again going back to what they call specific drills. Getting on the court and doing a bunch of cute things. And theyre not

training. I mean Ive been at the Bulls and I have seen a decline in physical preparedness of the rookies and young kids who are getting in than I did 10 years ago. Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: No. I agree with you with that. In order words if youre a basketball player, and lets say college basketball player, and you start playing in October. You have what, a six month season now? And now youve got 6 months and its very hard to maintain your strength levels all through the season. So now youve got this short window of opportunity where you have to go back and work on explosive power. Strength. Elasticity. We have some injury. And the NCA only allows you 8 hours of mandatory off-season work. You cant afford to be

youve got to make every minute be valuable. And this again, why, when you have an athlete do a power clean, hes using up to 85% of his muscles. And at any one time hes using 50% of them. So in one exercise I do power cleans, squats, some type of pressing motion. Ive worked the whole body. I dont need to isolate a lot of things. So what Im saying to you my off-season I want to get in and work and get them physically ready. Now as we get closer to the season, we do some transitional things. Well do what we call a basketball circuit. Well have them do things in the lane. Like, run from one side of the lane to the other in a specific time. Well have them slide. Do these types of slides. Well do suicides. Well try to do some related movement patterns and with some

rest to work ratios that are somewhat related to the game. Then once you get to the in, actually the training camp is where we really reduce the lifting the most because were under the heaviest loads in terms of practice time, and then once you get in season we try to lift at least twice a week. And heres what we do. If were going to lift, it doesnt matter what day, well emphasize maybe a leg movement, like squat. Then the pressing movement will be less emphasis so itll be maybe lighter intensity or do a few repetitions and well do a pulling motion. Then the next work out when we lift, we may say, okay, were going to emphasize pressing more so the squatting will be less. Then the third work out maybe the pulling motion or the Olympic motion will be the emphasis. And in between

that , on the off days, were always trying to maintain our core strength and stability. Ryan Lee: What are some exercises that are your favorites for core, strength and stability? Al Vermeil: Well the thing about core strength its gotten very sophisticated because its not all standing on a physio ball. Theres a variety. Depends what youre trying to work. If youre trying to work the low level stabilizers - I like to control rotation, for example. I like to be lying on my back, supine, bend my knees so it looks like a sit up position. And Ill tighten up my abs and gluts, and Ill bridge up onto my shoulders with my feet on the ground. My shoulders. And then Ill bridge up, my hips off the ground depending on you dont want to over arch your back. And then what

Id like to be able to do is be able hold that position a while and when I can do that is to lift my right leg off the ground and hold it for 5 seconds. Put it back down and lift my left leg up without straightening the leg. When I can do that for up to two minutes, then I like to lift the leg and straighten the leg, like a leg extension. Now I should be able to hold that and not let the pelvis and any of these rock side to side. That means you can control rotation because so much of sport is a rotational movement. Just learning has a lot of rotational component. So thats a really good simple one that I like. Another real simple test for people is to get on an armless chair and center themselves on it, and kind of hang there like Superman and see if they can

hold that position for 2 or 3 minutes to see if they have any endurance in extension. Ryan Lee: Do you find a lot of athletes are weak in that level? Al Vermeil: Yeah. I just found, I found a surprisingly number of athletes not being prepared. Now youve got to understand, I go all the way back to the father of all strength coaches and probably many of the listeners wont know him, was Alvin Roy. He was the gentleman that started lifting at El Schue and Paul Beacher was there and a gentleman Billy Cannon who won the Heinzman trophy eventually. He was the first one to have be a strength coach back then. Got his book when he started. And what we used to do in the 60s we did basic training. People were

in condition. And weve gotten away from that. And I think its evident. And thats why weve got to go back to the fundamentals. Any time you get away from the fundamentals of anything you do in life, whether its strength and conditioning, your job, being a mechanic like my Dad was. I dont care. Your products not going to be as good. So I think weve got to get back to getting kids in shape. Because were dealing all youve got to do is read the paper. What, 50% of the teenagers, or 50% of the population is obese? Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: Yea. Its scary. And why is it? Because we have no physical education! And everybodys looking for a

10-minute workout to get in shape. There are

no 10-minute workouts to get in shape. I think one thing Id like to pass along, not that Im smarter than anybody else cause Im certainly not, but people just getting into this business or only been in it for a short time, never stop learning. There are no secrets. There are no magic exercises. There are no magic sets and reps. There are just good, logical, common sense progressions. And thats why I have what I call a pyramid of success. I could email it to you. Not pyramid of success. I mean pyramid of training and development. You could put it on your web site. Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: Yes, please. Thatd be great. And I could send you 2 of them because theres a sequence. And what it isis first

you get them in shape. Then you try to work on their strength. Then you try to work on their explosive power. And then when they become good in all those things, then theyll get along fast. If you can picture a pyramid upside down, its going to fall over. Weve got to make sure that we get the athletes prepared. And you have kids that dont do physical labor any more. And I grew up in a farming area where kids baled hay and worked physically. Well, its and we had

physical education. I didnt have to teach when I started coaching, I didnt have to teach kids to squat. They could all squat. Now youve got to teach them.

Ryan Lee:

No, youre right. So what are some things you recommend for good conditioning workouts?

Al Vermeil:

Well, I tell you what, Id recommend that old medicine ball. I tell you one of the things I like to do and still simple, tell the general population, just dont get too heavy one. Well take our athletes and well go down at one end of the court and well throw the ball against the wall for 20 repetitions of a medicine ball exercise. Stride down the other end of the court at a moderate pace, because the game is not a sprint. Ive done some time analysis and the NBA takes 5 seconds, on average, to get the ball in-bound to get down to where they make another pass. And they go 18 yards. Its not as fast as everybody

thinks. So you run down the other end and do another 20 reps of a different exercise. So well go up and down ten 10 times with 20 throws between take a 2-minute break between and repeat it. And we call that medicine ball tempo. We might work up to 800 throws. So its an excellent 20 to 30 minute work out for the general conditioning because youre going to work your abs. Youre going to work your legs. Youre going to work you shoulders. Youre going to work diagonal patterns. Rotational patterns. Weve been using youth ball for a long, long time in the Chicago Bulls. To me its worked out very well for us. So thats one real good. Heres another real good one for young kids. And you can do this with a dumbbell and barbell. If theyre really young I would do it

with a dumbbell. I would do 6 upright rolls. We call this the complex and I got it from a gentleman in Kansas City named Steve Jabord. Well do 6 of those and then well put the dumbbells down by our knees, or the barbell. The positions called the hang. The shin should be at 90, the weight should be on the heals. Its almost like a defensive position or a short stop position or line backers position. And then we take the barbell or dumbbell and go straight over our head. We call that a muscle stance. We do 6 of those. Now if were using a barbell, the next thing we do is a 6 good mornings. If were not using a barbell then we just cant do them. Then we will put the barbell on our back. Well squat down and then well stand up with it and press the weight overhead 6

times. We finish that well put the weight by our knees again in the - that hang position. Our back is tight. Our weight is on our heals and well do 6 bent over rolls. And what we do is we teach exercise individually first. And let the athlete work up to about 25% of his body weight with three sets of 6 of each of them. And then we put it together. The upright row, the upright stance, the muscle stance, the good morning, the squat compress, and the bent over roll and do 6 of each. And we like our male athletes to work up to about 40% of their body weight and females 30%. So its a good general preparation for people before they lift weights. In other words, if we can do this in the medicine ball, weve feel weve got them pretty well prepared. So when we start

squatting a little heavier and we start doing more aggressive things, weve strengthened everything and prepared them to handle those loads. Ryan Lee: Yeah. Let me tell you those 2 workouts are stuff that Ive actually written articles on the site about. Ive done basically so much of that kind of work with my athletes and its just incredible because not only are you strengthening but the amount of conditioning youre doing as well while youre lifting. Especially those dumbbell combos oh my god theyre a killer. Al Vermeil: And the interesting thing the medicine ball thing If youre working with todays athletes and the big, heavy kids that youve got, youre not going to pound them. And what

we find that it really, de-fats em. I think it leans them up really good. I just think that medicine ball - a great tool. See what Im saying, you spend the $50 or $75 or whatever they cost. Look how much you can do with that medicine ball versus a $2,000 machine. Youre sitting in it. Youve done one exercise. Ryan Lee: Plus you get the whole team. If you buy 10 balls, or 20 balls, you get the whole team going on the court at the same time. Al Vermeil: Its moving in patterns that are related to what theyre going to do in the activity. Your web site is sport specific training. And youre a smart man. Its just a great analysis would be to have a split screen and to have someone sitting and doing a peck deck or leg

extensions, in my opinion, and then on the other split have them throwing a medicine ball. Have them squatting. And then if you could have a third screen show the activity of the sport that youre training them for and see which is most related. Ryan Lee: You wont find many peck deck exercises on our site. I can tell you that. Al Vermeil: No. And like I said, what weve developed over the years and Ive never marketed it. I developed a computerized timing device oh I did it almost 20 years ago, over 20 years ago I started developing it. I could measure how

high a kid jumps. How fast he gets off the ground. How fast he changes direction laterally; forwards; backwards. How quick his feet are. Thats the type of machinery thats

important that helps you evaluate and thats one thing I forgot to mention. The first thing we do is we have a thorough evaluation. The head strength coach, now Al Killen and his assistant, Jeff Macy and I, we evaluate every draft choice, every player. And we do a complete evaluation on posture, flexibility, stability, mobility of the hips. Heres a great tip for the coaches. Take a stick. Have a young man or young woman put the stick over their head with a little wider than shoulder width grip. See if they can squat down at least to parallel or slightly below, keeping their heals flat, their back fairly erect with that stick extended over head. So we do a thorough evaluation of these athletes and then we give that information to the powers to be in terms of drafting them. And then if we

draft them, then we have a profile on them So we know what were going to do. And theres ways to test kids and athletes in groups that you can help eliminate some of the problems you do have when people that you train. Ryan Lee: And I know, were out of time. Theres so much stuff that we could talk about. I know we could talk about for hours. I hope to have you on in the future interview as well. And have you add more to the site as well. Al Vermeil: I appreciate that. Thats very kind of you to call me and thank you very much. And good luck to everybody out there and I hope that something I said will help someone in their career. Ryan Lee: Oh Im sure it did.

Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee:

I will send you that stuff so you can post it. Sounds great. And once again everyone Ive been speaking with Al Vermeil. Check out his video Success through Training at http://www.performbetter.com. He also has that oof ball video which outlines. I know I have one of his videos which shows a sample work out I believe with medicine balls.

Al Vermeil:

1-800-OOF. O o o f. I think is what the number is.

Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee: Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee:

If not, Ill find the link. Its 1-800-oofball. 1-800-oofball? I think thats the number. Okay.

Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee:

Well thank you very much. Thank you coach and we will be speaking to you real soon.

Al Vermeil: Ryan Lee:

Okay. Have a good evening. Okay. You too. Bye. Once again everybody that was Al Vermeil formerly of the Chicago Bulls. well still with the Bulls. The Forty-niners and the White Socks. Great strength coach. Been around for a long time. Hope you enjoyed that interview. And this is Ryan Lee signing off from http://www.sportspecific.com . Hope you enjoyed that and see you real soon. Bye.