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By Chris Kor st

I took a break from writing this summer but Tony’s latest 3 part series

inspired me. At rst, I thought of Oliver Wendell Holmes quote:

“We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record

may seem super cial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly
out of superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no

matter how utterly his reason may reject them.”

Not that I often sit and ponder Oliver Wendell Holmes, but this quote really

sums up his series of articles. But then I thought of …. 

“War caused me to cross the threshold of reality… business is reality.

Philosophy will only get you killed”

You see, Oliver Wendell Holmes had a unique perspective on life. He came

from an upper class family in Boston but instead of nding a way out of
serving for the Union in the Civil War he became an of cer, wounded in

three different battles during the war. At the Battle of Antietam, he was shot
through the neck and left for dead by the surgeons on the eld, only to wake
up a day later and walk back to a hospital. Later as an associate Supreme

Court justice, he was a champion for progressivism and pragmatism, the

rst form of American philosophy. (For more on this, check out the book, The

Metaphysical Club).

Holmes had a solid foot in both worlds, the realities of life as well as the ideas

of creating a better world. Most armchair quarterbacks have never taken a

snap. How Holmes can help us in this great football debate is the balance

between and “ism” and reality of war. 

This is where I come in. While blogging and having different ideas about

how to change the world, I have had the responsibility of training a high
school football team for the last ve years at Hinsdale Central High School

and this was not my rst gig working with football teams, just my most

recent. Not only did I have the skill players, I also had the linemen. I worked

for Dan Hartman, who  was 40-13 in 5 years at Central. In those 5 years, we
turned out NINE Division-1 linemen. Before that, I coached some brothers

that played at Michigan State and now the NFL.  During the appropriate

dates, college coaches came to observe our morning workouts. What caught

most coaches attention during our morning workouts was how well our big
men moved. One was offered on the spot when his 6’3,” 270-pound body

slam dunked a volleyball. 

How did we build D1 lineman? Here was our level one check list (the

fundamentals.

Do their feet work?

This is not not only for big men but all athletes. It just seems that big men

have feet that are constantly on the outsides of the feet or even on the heels.

There can be a lot of reasons why:

From a neurologic sense, to support their size safely, they use minimal foot

and ankle movement as they move for fear of injuring the limb. This is

especially true when athletes add more weight than what their brain thinks

they should be able to support

From an exercise selection, we get our big men to squat. So you have

unsupervised high school kids look at YouTube and get some bro science to

learn how to squat. What do they learn? Put your weight on your heels and

outside of foot, push your butt out back. While they can get some higher

squat totals, they are teaching a really poor gait pattern (no pronation). They
never learn to get to their big toe which means minimal glute recruitment.

Neurologically, if the body doesn’t feel safe or stable, it will reduce power

output or create a new recruitment pattern. Learning to move on the

outside of your feet basically makes each step seem like walking on a tight-

rope. 

What makes this problem worse is the fact they jam their bigger feet into

shoes that may be the correct length but certainly are not the proper width.

Look at how many of your big men have shoes where their foot is wider than

the sole. Look to see if the outside or inside of their foot is spilling out on the

outsides of the shoe.  At this point, from a neurological sense, it becomes a

balancing act rather than a performance improvement session. Or the drop

between the heels and forefoot is so high that they never need to bend their

ankles when they walk. The forward lean created the elevated heel becomes

their ankle rocker. And while the athletes will have training shoes, their
walking shoes are also affecting their gait. Their 1000 steps at practice are

easily wiped out by the 15000 steps in daily life with bad shoes. Good tting

shoes are a must. 

All of these issues can be remedied with a good foot program which is why
we spend 6-8 weeks working on getting their feet to work properly. What is

a proper functioning foot? When the ball of the big toe can bear weight and

create a tripod, one of the most stable designs. This tripod would also

include pulling the toes off the oor. Because we have crammed our feet

into sleek looking shoes with a narrow toe box, we have learned to use our

toes to help support the outside of the foot. Just look to see how many

people have their little toes curled under. Try it with you or your team. Take

your shoes off, stand on one leg, pull your toes up and evenly distribute
weight over the foot. Your practice might instantly become a dance party.

This is a reason why we have so many injuries. The brain is always looking for

a third leg of the tripod. Because we never nd the natural leg, we may try to

nd one in the wrong place and bam, you have an injury. 

Can their ankles move?

I remember my days of coaching football and the line coach would always

yell at the lineman to stay low. To force the habit, we used chutes to battle in

the low position with hopes there would be some carryover to the eld. The

problem really wasn’t the players fault. He just couldn’t bend his ankles.

Bending ankles means unlocking the 90 degree angle. If they can’t push

that shin forward, they can’t direct their force horizontally. They will

compensate with a lean instead of a drive. Other problems will crop up from
the lack of ankle movement as well, all of which we try to use drills to

prevent without dealing with the actual cause. Here are some of the

complaints.

Bend back to get depth.

Tend to stand up.

Vector more vertical in nature.

Can’t load limb.

Look like playing on stilts.

Very robotic or stiff.

Strange running patterns.

To develop the ankles, we once again start very basic and slow. I call it an

ankle rocker squat. Once an athlete can establish the basic foot pattern, they

will go into a single leg quarter squat by pushing their shin over their second
toe.
Some common cheat patterns replicate some of their basic movement

cheat patterns:

Gaining depth by bowing. Most athletes want to do what they are asked. We
tell them to get deeper, so they do. They bow or break at the waist. To help

this, have them imagine they are in a glass tube.

Gain depth by pushing their hip off to the side… have them stand next to the

wall and ankle squat. The wall becomes the cue to hold hips in place

If you want to get more in depth with the foot/ankle complex, check out the
Triphasic Spring Ankle method on XLathlete.com.
Can they handle their body weight?

The number of bigger kids that get away with people thinking they are

strong because they are big is always puzzling to me because when you ask
them to do things with just their body weight, most of them fail. This is why

we start our off-season with being able to control your own body without
any external force.

From a strength perspective, we start with a lunge and have them hold that
position perfectly for up to 60 seconds. I want them to learn to use their legs

to drive rather than allowing gravity and momentum to create the force they
use to drive. To load the position, have the athletes push their knee forward

over the toe with the weight on the ball of their foot. While holding the
foot/ankle position, have them push their butt back. It should seem like they

are getting pulled forward at the knee and backwards from the hip. Make
sure their hands stay on their hip as well. The rst couple of sessions really

looks like a dance party as athletes try to nd ways to compensate because

their legs simply aren’t strong enough to hold their body weight. They will
put hands on their thighs or fold at the waist.

Once athletes establish the strength of that position, change torso positions

as well. We will also go through all of our ankle positions as well with an
emphasis of the weight on the ball of the big toe. We will also hold positions

that we like to see when we run. We will hold positions from the boom series
and hip hike series. How can we ask our athletes to move well if they can’t
be strong in the positions we need them to be in? We revisit these positions

during the season for varsity players and use the workout as a restorative
workout during the season. When the season is over, we will only spend

minimal time with returning players.

Next article, we will look at what happens after we master the fundamentals.

By Chris Kor st

THREE Track Football Consortiums in THREE states this winter!