Strength and conditioning coach

Coach Barrett is the Associate Athletic Director for Sports Performance at the University of Indianapolis.

A longtime leader in collegiate strength and conditioning, he previously served as UND's Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for more than a decade.

Overseeing the physical development of student athletes across the university's athletic programs, Barak is a UND graduate holding a BS in exercise science and a master's in physical education and health.

Before joining UND, he coached at Franklin Community High School and Indian Creek High School.

You need to get faster.

Lifting is going to bulk you up.

What are the benefits of having these types of lifts? Um, like injury prevention strengthening like you brought up force as a drive but then also can you explain to me a little bit like why are some coaches or some strength and conditioning coaches like especially the football programs I see lifting before games

yeah so that that's a really good question so like lifting before a game my thought would be they're doing that just for load management where they they want to keep their intense days intense where it's like high stress day low stress day where it's like game day is pretty much maximum stress where it's just like max like max speed you're going go go go so it's like all right we're gonna consolidate all of our stress on that day where it's like all right we're gonna lift before and then we're also gonna play so it's like it's a high stress day and then maybe like their next day would be maybe like more like walkthroughs in practice and maybe some mobility stuff yeah yeah so that's probably why they're doing it i would say probably to consolidate their stress and From what we're doing in the weight room, I think I'm just trying to build consistency with our athletes where it's like one workout's not going to build or break you.

It's like you have to show up week after week, session after session.

Now you need the practitioner, the person, the human, and a more tailored approach.

So whether it's periodization from you as a strength and conditioning coach or, you know, biomarkers and more elaborate testing from myself and our team with Allo Performance and that will get the person the results that they need.

Yeah.

I think you've done a phenomenal job explaining the nuance involved in this because, you know, when you bring in, you know, blood work is one thing.

I did what I had to do." So because I have that, and I haven't published the research, they have, but I'm just like, I have that knowledge and that, that's like you said, it, it doesn't tell you that psychological, which is also goes into, um, methodology sections within research papers.

It's, it, they're not like, "Hey, well, what's the atmosphere like?" Like, Mallory, if you've got great buy-in with your athletes and they love training with each other and you have a great environment, well, now they're gonna be trying even harder, and that's something that I think we hung our hat on as strength coaches.

Like, we create a great environment.

We, we make it fun to be in, but that gets left out in the, the scientific process, unfortunately.

And so now as my cousins and younger siblings have kind of come through and I'm like, "Y'all aren't playing soccer? Like, this is a family thing.

Come on." Um, but just grew up around the game, played the game at, in college at a smaller NAIA school, and I found myself, towards the end of my own playing career, I loved, like, the performance space more than, like, actually being on the ball and on the field.

And so finally, my, when I was, like, having a mental breakdown in college, like most college kids do, about not knowing what career path to go down, I was like taking organic chem and I'm like, "This is awful." Uh, my parents were like, "Why don't you be a strength coach?" Like, you know, my brother, who's a much better soccer player than me and still plays professionally, he was going on his big college recruiting visits, and these schools had strength coaches.

The school I went to, we didn't have a strength coach, we were that small.

I'm a power skating instructor.

And then overall, I'm a strength and conditioning coach.

But my certification there is Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

And then one of my designations is I'm a Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach.

So I feel quite qualified to give you an answer on the distinction between instructor and coach.

So when I'm instructing, I'm giving a step-by-step process of how to accomplish something.