Underground Strength Interview
with Coach Ethan Reeve
Part III

4) What are some things in / out of the weight room that you would discourage football players / wrestlers to do? Are there any training methods / techniques that are used commonly today yet have no carry over to their sport?

Coach Reeve: We tell our athletes and sport coaches that there are many ways to become a champion. Some are more efficient and some are less efficient. We have found many ways to gain strength, power, speed, athleticism and size! We try to incorporate as much variety as possible without compromising our philosophy and efficiency while also delaying boredom.

Weight machines are not used by me or my two assistant strength coaches here at Wake Forest when working with our sport teams. This is part of our philosophy. We are not saying you cannot have success using machines. Of course you can! We just don't train our athletes with machines during the team workouts. We don't discourage our athletes from using machines during their personal "champion" workouts individually. We do have machines in our strength room, just not many.

We prefer training our athletes with total body lifts to develop strength, power and athleticism. In our opinion, using weight machines is less efficient in developing these qualities. Isolation of joints or muscle groups is a less efficient way of training athletes. If the athlete desires, during personal workouts, to do isolation work then we do not discourage this!

5 & 6) With regards to in season training for football players and wrestlers, are there any specific things you can advise them on or perhaps guidelines to follow? Especially w/regards to how so many high school athletes do strength training only in the off season and then completely stop during the in season?

Last but not least, give us a little insight to your thoughts on the "Champion's Attitude". Also, what does it take for an athlete to make it in a D 1 sport and be highly successful?

Coach Reeve: A major part of our philosophy is the "champion's attitude". A champion in any sport has to make a concrete decision to become a champion. A champion is different than other athletes. But there is a reason he is different.

He does things other athletes either refuse to do or don't think of doing! He does the "extra" things it takes to become a champion. This is true in sport, music, the classroom, business, medicine, law, etc.

A champion does both the extra work and works hard at it. The champion works hard and smart. He writes down his short and long term goals to give him direction. The champion finds a way to win.

The champion doesn't want to waste time! The champion wrestler does the extra drilling of wrestling technique, runs extra bleachers, gets up early to workout before school, does extra pushups or chins before going to bed! He is the one that watches what he eats and gets adequate rest and sleep.

He stays flexible and in great condition! He has great control of his emotions in stressful situations. He comes to practice early and leaves late. He is the one that strives to get better and better each and every day.

The sport coach has the duty to encourage the "champion's attitude". "Did you do any extra workout today?" he will ask! The strength coach and sport coach must not design team workouts that will take every bit of energy out of the athletes. Leave some energy for the "champion" to do his extra workouts.

This way the champion can take some ownership in his success. The sport coach and strength coach should design the team workouts to make them difficult enough for the team to have success.

If the strength coach and sport coach designed workouts around the champion then he will find few athletes left to coach. I have had many of these types of champion athletes ask why I don't push the whole team harder. My answer is "how many athletes would be willing to work like a champion?" Not many!!!

However, by encouraging the "champion's attitude" maybe we can get more athletes doing their "champion" workouts. The key is to get the athlete to "want" to be champion not "pushed" into being a champion. We push our teams hard enough to win as a team while encouraging the champion's attitude in those individuals that decide to be a champion.

7) As the head strength coach who works closely with the football coaches, how do the coaches at your university & other universities view the combine that high school football coaches compete at?

• Do the coaches get swayed into recruiting a player if he does well on the combines?
• Any other comments on the combine tests?

Coach Reeve: Our football coaching staff will look at results from the combine. However, most importantly, they get to know the football player, his family and his character to see if he fits Wake Forest University.

I can't answer for other universities. I will tell you that combine results are of little value if the football player does not exhibit being a good football player on game day. From my experience, the NFL scouts feel the same way. They will look at tons of game film. If the player lets up on plays and doesn't play all plays with his "hair on fire" then the scouts will not ask me much about him. We give the NFL scouts strength room results dealing with speed, agility, strength and power. These results don't matter if the player doesn't produce on game day!

Hopefully, this will be of some value to some of the high school football players to make sure they always play hard each and every play.

If you want more from Coach Reeve, check out The Underground Strength System for a uncut audio interrogation where Coach Reeve reveals some of the most powerful strength & conditioning information you will ever hear. Check it out HERE.