MACOMB – Games, matches and competition may seem to be off in the distant future, but for John Minnis and the Western Illinois strength and conditioning staff, when it comes to getting ready, the time is now.
With a handful of Leatherneck student-athletes on campus and more returning to Macomb in the coming weeks, Minnis is pushing everyone to be at their best come August.
With close to 100 athletes already in town, football is Minnis' focus as the months turn to weeks and eventually to days when fall camp begins.
"Football, our big focus right now for the month of June is building strength and work capacity," he said. "They come out of spring ball they're beat up, we have a couple weeks of rejuvenation phase which is a little bit lighter, work on basic movements but healing from all the bumps and bruises.
"They have some time away where the big focus is work capacity, building bulk volume on them, they get back the first week of June and in the weightroom we're trying to build strength and out on the field we're trying to build a bigger, more endurance, a longer-lasting motor and when we get into July, that's when it gets really fun. When we get closer to the sport itself, we want our training to look like the sport. We cut down on the lifting, we go down from four days a week to three days of lifting and then every day we're on the field in some capacity – Tuesdays and Thursdays we're only on the field and everything we're doing, from speed work but also grappling drills so guys can get more physical with each other but also sumo drills, pummeling, things like that where they're hand fighting and being more physical and build that endurance motor in them, but also doing things like small-sided games, med-ball volleyball, med-ball rugby, things where they have to react to someone reacting to them so it's looking more like the sport."
As the days heat up, so does the training. As June ends and July begins, Minnis is planning to push players more and more and get them not only in great physical shape, but excellent football conditioning.
"We do more cat-and-mouse, chasing speed work so they're competing against each other and start to match the volume they'll see in camp," the coach said. "The thing with football, you come to camp, it's a known thing, everyone is out of shape, doesn't matter what you do, you're finally in front of the coaches, it's go time, adrenaline is running high, everyone is going faster than they should, so efficiency is out the window, everybody is smoked the first few days but after that, they calm down, they adapt and the training really sets in after the first few days.
"We're trying to match the volume the best we can, we utilize tempo runs, once a week these are longer runs, mid-distance runs, run on one minute running clock, our big guys run 40-60 yards, our mid guys run 60-100 and our skill guys run 80-120 yards at a time. They run 65-75, then whatever is left, they rest, then we do sets of that, we don't want to crush them but we want to build yards on their legs and build that motor more. It's a recovery method while getting yards on their legs."
Football is not the only focus of the staff, either. Men's basketball is also in town going through the paces, and while game one is still a long way away, getting the program up and moving is also a priority.
Also, volleyball is less than a week away from reporting.
"Basketball, the big push right now is keeping these guys in shape," Minnis said. "They have awhile before their season starts, along with football, those are the two teams on campus right now, volleyball will be back early and before they start camp it will be similar.
"We want to prepare them for camp, make sure they are in shape for camp. The strength we can build, they should have a carryover from strength but it's the work capacity we need to see, they need to have the volume on their legs, volleyball is a jumping sport so they have a lot of pounding going on their legs so we have to make sure they can handle it, so that's the big focus."
With so many new faces in the weightroom and on campus, getting to know student-athletes and develop trust is just as important as giving them a plan. Freshmen come in and want to make a statement, or are spending more time in a weightroom than ever before.
In order to make sure no one pushes too hard, too fast, putting expectations in place for the newest members of programs is key.
"On the football side, we're pretty lucky, we can separate the freshmen completely, which is a huge benefit so we can teach them," Minnis said. "They're not seeing the older guys as much in the weight room and trying to keep up. The big thing with freshmen is, they understand they're not in high school anymore. Everything they've done to get here is not going to keep them here now and it sure is not going to get them to the next level, they need to understand that. We take a philosophy, LTAD, long-term athletic development so we look at, we're not trying to get them to be superstars in camp this year, we're trying to get them to be able to survive camp this year, get to winter training, spring season and develop them so that next year when they're a sophomore or a red-shirt freshmen, they're at that level where they can really perform."
For Minnis, freshmen are a long-term investment, bring them along and reap the benefits in the future.
"They're not broken down right away and we can continue that development without burning them out early," he said. "We look at it, we put them in a slow cooker, not a microwave, we slowly heat them up we get them better, stronger, we're not looking them at being as strong as they can possibly be by the end of summer, but looking at them getting stronger, faster for the next three to five years. That's the big thing, get them to understand they don't need to be stars right away, but if they are this year, that's great but that's not what our goal is with them, it's get them a little better every month without burning them out."
Along with freshmen, staffs are dealing with an ever-increasing amount of new faces due to the transfer portal. With players coming to Western Illinois from other institutions, Minnis also realizes his staff may need to re-teach methods to new student-athletes as well as be on the lookout for old habits.
"College now, for strength coaches, on the football side it's almost like working in the NFL, you might have 25 new guys who are going to be here a year, they may get here a week before camp, they may get here Day 1 so the big thing is, we talk about this when they get on campus, we understand they trained elsewhere under a competent coach, maybe, maybe not, you never know, but we always three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and my way," he said. "That's what matters, I make sure to explain to them, I'm not saying what they learned is wrong or right but I'm saying it might not be the way I coach it, and I want you to do it the way I coach it and why. That's why it always comes back to explaining why we do it and if we can explain it because it's going to make you better, if they understand it, if you explain it so they understand it, they'll trust you.
"If you just say 'you're wrong, here's how we do it,' they're not going to buy in. With the transfers, some of these guys may have been playing for four years or five years at other institutions, we have guys who played at Illinois, Notre Dame, I know the strength coaches there and what they're like, but we still have to treat these guys like they've never trained before because we have never worked with them. We still have to start them slow and make sure they can move as well as we think they can, we can't just have them go max out on squat and bench because they get injured and we didn't catch it. We still have to ease them in at first, baby steps, explain why we're doing something and then making sure we're not putting them or their previous coach down by doing it differently."
Designating how to train is a major part of what Minnis and the strength and conditioning coaches do for Western Illinois.
A volleyball player does not train the same way a football player does, nor does an offensive linemen train the same as a defensive back. Workout specialization and finding what works for each athlete and sport is a big part of the process for everyone.
"In the weightroom, workouts can be very similar, if it's strength workout, put muscle mass on, build explosive power, that can look the same, but where it is specialized is on the field for football, volleyball on the court, that's where it is more specialized," Minnis said. "We want it to look similar to the game the closer we get, you take a basketball player, now they need general physical preparations, that's the main thing, they are four, five months away from their practice starting so we don't need them to be peaking, with them, it's 'we need to get these guys bigger, get these guys faster and these guys need to lose weight.' It does not have to be specific right now
"With football, we have to look at it, 'what do our offensive and defensive linemen need? What do our linebackers need? What do our defensive backs and skill guys need?' So for something like today, we had a speed day, skill guys run with a lighter sled behind them for 20 yards and our big guys are pushing a heaving sled for seven to 10 yards at a time, that's how we change it up. The differences are what we're doing outside the weightroom."
Getting student-athletes, bigger, faster and stronger is a major component of the offseason but so is also keeping them healthy not just in the present, but future as well. Injury prevention is just as big a part of summer workouts as anything else.
But with so much going on, even Minnis admits there is no fool-proof method to keeping athletes healthy and on the field.
"Injury prevention is a hard one when it comes to athletics, it's not so much if we can prevent it but along the lines, when is it going to happen?" Minnis said. "There's a saying, 'if you don't want to get hurt, don't play,' but it's more what we're doing that is allowing them to recover faster.
"The big thing is to curb that, with spring we come back, everyone wants to go crazy with their runs, so we dial it down, maybe we run a hill, it slows it down, takes stress off hamstrings and goes to the glutes and quads and less stress on the hamstrings. Running with a sled or weight behind you slows you down, the intensity is higher but the speed intensity is not there. We can also pre-fatigue them. In June, with the guys we have on campus now, especially football, it's work capacity. We can do that in the warm-up, add things that are beneficial, smaller muscle groups, the hips, shoulders, protect those joints, their abductors on the inside of their legs, add that and it pre-fatigues them so when they do the running, they're backed off a little bit. The other thing is, making sure they understand what they're doing, why they're doing it so they don't blow their motor right away. We don't want to rev it real hard and blow a gasket, it's not just coaching but teaching them why we're doing something, how to do it for those reasons so they're apt to buy in."
Compared to last summer, this summer has been much easier for WIU athletes, coaches and trainers. Coming off a season when COVID-19 pushed normal fall sports to the spring and cut recovery and training time down to a handful full of weeks instead of months, having time to get everyone health and rehabbed is a welcome return to normal.
"I thought we did a great job last year, with football, that one I was worried about, they're coming off the spring season and they're still here, and we had to get them ready," Minnis said. "Other sports were off campus so they're going to self-regulate more, which is fine, especially last year, so I was fine with some of those athletes taking time off, but we did that here with football too. We couldn't push as fast last summer, this year they got on campus and it was 'hey, let's push them, we can get then going.' They're coming off spring ball, but that's not the same as coming off a spring season. They're further ahead, they're less beat up, last year with football, between the calendar year of 2021, we only had three hamstring injuries and no low back, soft tissue injuries, so we did a good job between us and the training staff. We had good communication, the football staff had a plan for practices, we did a good job there.
"This year, they're not as beat up so we can push them, but those things are still there, we still have to watch them, we have to make sure we're not beating them up because we can. We still have to prepare and develop them, we can't think 'they didn't play in the spring, we can push them harder,' yeah we can but we still have to control that to some extent."
While coaches can do more this summer than last year, they still have to respect the need to rest and recover before starting the build to the new year. Moving athletes along at an appropriate pace is a major responsibility of the staff.
"We preach recovery here, if you can't recover, you're breaking your body down and you can't get better, we use Wednesdays, it's all about recovery, teach them how to breathe, how to sleep, how to keep a sleep schedule, all those things and teaching them independence with their bodies," Minnins said. " 'My hips are sore, my hamstrings are sore, my lower back hurts, but here are some things I can do, the QL stretch I can do at home,' things like that, so they know when they're at home, they can take 10 minutes to take care of their bodies."
Along with rest and recovery, nutrition is a big part of the lives of every student-athlete. Eating properly is a big point of emphasis, but Minnis also knows when you are dealing with college kids, just getting them to do the basics is a big win.
"We try to do presentations with guys, we have powerpoints we put out, we talk to them, we did it last Wednesday with the football team and we do it with everybody, it's important we push it, there's general stuff we can put out but so much of nutrition is very individual, finding out what they're willing to eat," he said. "If we put someone on chicken breasts and broccoli and they hate both of those, they're not going to stick to it, so we have to find out what they like and also tailer it because they are college kids, they are going to go to McDonalds, they're going to do things that aren't perfect and sometimes they don't have the money. We're not dealing with multi-millionaire professional athletes so we have to find ways to work. You can eat somewhat healthy at McDonalds or Taco Bell, at least good enough.
"They burn so many calories in the summer between player-led practices, our workouts, they're burning so many calories. We have to get the calories in. Coming out of high school, they have a particular way they eat and a lot of times it's not good, so a lot of times, it's getting them to eat. If they have to get a 20-piece nugget meal for $5, that's a lot easier than them getting a sirloin steak, sweet potatoes, white rice that's going to cost $15 maybe just the steak alone, so if we can get more protein in them, good, is it quality protein, no, but we don't have the resources that they have at Power 5, we don't have two training tables a day for these guys, we have to find a diet that works for them, we get them the protein powder, that's fine but it's maybe before we lift, we put out two minutes of 'before you lift, this is what you should eat, before bed, this is what you should eat,' two-three minutes every day pushing something in their head so eventually it's lodged in that they know to eat this or eat that. Working with college kids, they're Division I athletes, but they're still college kids and you have to realize that."
Along with diet and nutrition, the Leathernecks fight the constant battle every team in the county faces during the summer months: hydration. With outdoor workouts scheduled and heat and humidity rising, staying ahead of dehydration along with looking for warnings remain high priorities.
"That is a big one, what we implemented since I got here is the use of salt. We have a product called Redmond's Real Salt, I think it's the best thing you can use, it gets the sodium in them, teaching them what a real electrolyte is and how electrolytes work," Minnis said. "We can drink Gatorade and Pedialyte and that's a good, quick fix if you're borderline dying of dehydration, that's a way to do it, but it's not a sustainable hydration tool because the electrolytes are in fluid so they're going to wash out. We utilize the salts, salting their foods, things like that, keep an eye on their cholesterol but there's not much connection there and the high sodium and high blood pressure but it's not there, we don't have that issue with these guys but we watch it just in case.
"And we use it with the food, so there is a natural transport, tell them 'we're not going to guzzle water once you take the sodium, you wait awhile, then sip on the water.' Drinking water is important, obviously, these guys carry around gallon jugs and they're drinking, drinking, drinking and they're peeing clear, which is saying they're flushing they're system, they're not hydrated. We want to see a little yellow tint in their urine. A lot of times we talk about the 'slosh gut,' it's borderline low sodium and what is happening is the water is sitting in their belly, that's what we want to avoid, so the big thing we push is sodium. We also talk a lot about potassium, where are we going to get it. Everyone goes right to bananas but I'd rather see them eat potatoes or avocados, that's going to give them a higher and better source of potassium. Magnesium is another one I want to see them get in their system. It comes down to making sure where the basics are. They have the sodium here, the protein powder. They come in, get the sodium for their food at night, they do sodium before work out, once they're done, based on sweat levels, they replace the sodium and we've had good luck with that. We've had minimal cramping issues with football last year and that's what we'll continue to do."
Keeping everyone healthy and getting them ready is what the summer is all about for coaches and while the strength and conditioning staff has been focused on football and men's basketball this June, they know things will really get going in the coming weeks. Volleyball and women's basketball are schedule to report July 5 and all other fall sports will begin trickling to town in the coming weeks.
Making sure the proper plan is in place for everyone is a big part of Minnis' daily duties and one he keeps front of mind.
"It's about making sure we have our schedule down and what teams are in when and want to be ready to go," he said. "We're in contact with the head coaches, 'what is your schedule going to look like, when are you practicing, what are your practices going to look like, what do you expect of your athletes when they come back, are we doing conditioning tests, are we testing flexibility, vertical jumps?'
"Although we're the experts in this field, it's the head coaches team, so we work for them, stay in contact, knowing what they're expectations are, what improvements do they need to see come season, whether in the spring, winter or fall. We also stay in contact with the athletes themselves, we get updates weekly, how are they, what are they doing, any injuries, what are they dealing with medically, how is their nutrition, body weight, do they feel overworked? It's about communicating between the athletes and coaches and that's going to give us an idea of what needs to happen so when they step back on campus we can hit the ground running."
