For modern, well-informed strength coaches like Zach Fears, several undeniable facts have emerged during the past 10 years. Among them, integrating cutting-edge technology into your programming and your department has become a prerequisite, not a luxury. What’s more, it’s occurring within a continued context of constrained budgets, expanding expectations, and that competitive drum’s never-ending beat.
Currently Director of Sports Performance for Missouri Western State University, Fears has earned numerous certifications. They include his MS, SCCC, RSCC*D, CSCS, USAW-1, FRCms, and CAFS. He’s about to add a couple more letters to the beginning of this already comprehensive spectrum of certification. Soon, Liberty University will bestow its Doctorate in Sports Leadership (DSL) upon Fears. This raises the potential for addressing him as Dr. Fears, arguably the best salutation for a strength coach ever.
Fears is a testament to this parallel evolution of technology and athletic performance coaching . With deep experience spanning multiple levels, Fears is in the vanguard of strength coaches who have successfully incorporated program-wide tech. And, he did it working under the same constraints as those mentioned above.
Over the past five years, Velocity-Based Training (VBT) has arisen a pivotal component in developing athletes and implementing training. It earned its place among real difference-makers, and now, there exist options that are reliable, durable and accurate. In addition, the affordability and efficacy of VBT tools like Vitruve make them accessible. For high school coaches working under tight budget constraints (basically all of you), this matters.
Maximizing Performance With Precision
Beyond performance and safety, VBT fosters comprehensive athlete development. Fears emphasizes evolving beyond traditional strength-focused paradigms to a more nuanced approach that encompasses speed, power and endurance. He sorts his athletes into different skill and performance levels, remaining focused on the individual’s specific needs. This allows for targeted development, ensuring each athlete receives training tailored to their stage of growth and specific performance goals.
Adopting VBT has revolutionized Fears’ approach to in-season training, with Fears noting significant enhancements in athlete performance. Vistruve makes in possible.
“Everything I do in season is complete auto-regulation, and my more advanced athletes will do nothing but auto-regulation,” Fears says. “I actually produced some of the best in-season results I’d ever seen and completely changed my philosophy on how I started doing in-season training.”
This personalized approach ensures that each athlete receives training that aligns perfectly with current capabilities, individual goals, and team demands.
Data-Driven Injury Prevention
The impact of VBT extends beyond performance enhancement to crucial injury prevention. Fears shares a remarkable statistic, noting that he and his athletes experienced 15 consecutive weeks without missing a single practice for a hamstring, hip flexor, or other such injury. This achievement is a direct result of meticulous load monitoring and the intelligent application of VBT data.
“We had zero missed games, zero missed practice, zero missed anything for any lower body soft tissue,” says Fears. “We use our VBT systems to back these guys down to make sure that they’re performing optimally.”
By closely monitoring each athlete’s performance data, Vitruve can adjust loads in real-time, significantly reducing the risk of overuse injuries.
Cultivating Competitive Excellence
The competitive environment fostered by VBT is not just about outperforming opponents on the season schedule; it’s equally about self-improvement. By challenging athletes to outperform and openly sharing performance data among teammates, a natural form of internal competition takes root.
“This creates a competitive environment where our guys are not just competing against each other but themselves too,” says Fears. “You’re not just going through the motions at 30%. If you want to go up in weight on auto-regulation, you have to go fast the whole time.”
The integration of VBT platforms like Vitruve represents an undeniable leap forward in athletic performance training. It enables a more personalized, data-driven approach that improves both performance and safety. As Fears’ demonstrates, embracing these innovations is no longer a choice, but may instead define the cost of entry.
Details
Each athlete, each sport and each person is completely different. Not everyone responds equally to the same stimulus. The first step to optimize training is to know which stimulus is better for each athlete. Velocity-Based Training can help high school athletes reach their maximum performance potential. Today's high school strength coach can:
- Know what your athlete's performance status is every day, instantly.
- Create a unique force-velocity profile for each athlete.
- Adapt an athlete's training regimen and avoid injuries.
VITRUVE is the Velocity Based Training device every Strength and Conditioning Coach needs to reach their athlete’s maximum performance.
