Adam’s path into strength and conditioning didn’t follow a traditional route. Through internships, networking, time in baseball and private facilities, and a willingness to take advantage of opportunities, he continued building the experience needed to establish himself in the profession.
Now at Fairmont State University, Adam faces the challenge of managing multiple teams and athletes within a shared facility. That environment has reinforced the importance of organization, adaptability, communication, and creating a culture where athletes are motivated to compete and improve.
At the center of Adam’s training philosophy is simplicity. Instead of chasing complexity for its own sake, he focuses on fundamental movements, consistency, and executing the basics at a high level. As Adam puts it, the goal is to “do the simple things savagely well.”
The conversation also explores athlete buy-in, relationship building, professional growth, and the role passion and humility play in building a sustainable career in strength and conditioning.
Key Takeaways
- Focus on fundamental movements and maintain high rep integrity.
- Simplicity and consistency can create highly effective training programs.
- Organization and adaptability are critical when managing multiple teams and shared facilities.
- Athlete buy-in starts with relationships, communication, and trust.
- Internships and networking provide valuable opportunities to gain experience and grow professionally.
- Passion and humility are essential for sustaining a long-term career in strength and conditioning.
- Coaches don’t need a conventional background to succeed if they’re willing to learn, adapt, and put in the work.
Quote
“We try to do the simple things savagely well.”
— Adam Kolberg, Head Strength Coach, Fairmont State University
Connor (00:45)
What’s going on, Samson Strength Coach Collective Listeners? On today’s episode, we have Adam Kolberg, Head Strength Agnes Coach at Fairmont State University. Adam, thank you so much for coming on.
Adam Kolberg (00:56)
Coach Agner, I appreciate you having me on. I’m excited.
Connor (00:58)
Well, dude, I’m stoked about this. And I hope you don’t mind me sharing the details of how we started this, right? So you
Adam Kolberg (01:04)
No, that’s fine.
Connor (01:05)
you host a podcast, which we’ll we’ll shout at at the end, I promise too, because I want you to the listeners to know that there’s quality content other places, even though I’d like to just hog all of it myself. but ultimately you had Peter Ken on as a guest, correct? And you listen on my podcast with Peter Ken. And I mentioned during that podcast that I love when people reach out to me. And so what I love even more.
Is that as a podcast host, I love when I speak and people listen. That makes me excited. And so Adam sent me an email, reached out, and said, Hey, you know, obviously finding guests is the hardest part of the podcast. The conversation’s always easy, which you are a hundred percent correct in saying that. And so we got you on the show almost immediately because it’s my favorite. And then I was able to check out some of your content and what you produce, and you do a killer job. So I’m really excited for this episode.
Adam Kolberg (01:52)
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. And you know, it’s it’s one of those things where we’re gonna have to kind of reciprocate this and have you on mine because it is, it’s the hardest part. It’s it’s honestly there’s it’s a challenge that’s that’s a fun challenge. And when you kind of you know, I I I started off with mainly getting people in my network and now that I’m reaching out, like it’s such a fun, a fun challenge of of getting getting to connect with other coaches. So I’m I’m excited to do this and I’m excited to eventually get you get you over on mine as well.
Connor (02:17)
absolutely. I’ll come on anytime, man. I love to talk about myself. So anytime I get to do that, I’ll take advantage. Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (02:21)
Ha sam same, same, same.
Connor (02:24)
yeah, but I agree with you. It’s really cool because you know, ultimately you get exposed to a lot of different coaches. One of the things that Samson makes it really important is like we don’t just want to chase the names that everybody always hears from. We want to speak with coaches like GAs, or first year coaches. you know, people who just don’t have a ton of experience because those are some of the podcasts I’ve learned the most from.
And it’s really cool. And what I feel like helps me, I don’t know if this has been your scenario either, right? You reach out to people in your network and then you start reaching out to people who are a little bit outside of it. and people get nervous. Like they’re like, Well, I don’t want to go on a podcast, I don’t really have much to say. And I’m like, bro, you have an entire world, you have an entire life that you’ve lived and you have experiences that are completely unique to you. Like you’ve got so much more to say than you think. And what’s helped me is like having some GAs on and then I invite another G A on or another first year strength coach, because those are the ones who are typically nervous to do it.
and then I say, Hey, look, check out a couple of these episodes and you’ll see that you’ve really got some quality stuff to pr produce. And it’s helped me out finding guests for sure.
Adam Kolberg (03:24)
Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you know, and and that’s something that I’ve really taken away from the podcast. I had I actually recorded an episode yesterday and I had a guy that’s I mean, he’s been a string coach for
five or six years now and he was like, Man, I’m nervous is my first podcast. And and I was like, I was dude, we’re just talking. We’re just it’s just like we’re at like a coaching coach clinic and we’re just hanging out. We’re we’re just we’re just talking, talking shop. Like don’t worry about it. Like there’s no perfect answer. Like everything that you’re gonna say, like somebody else has has experienced the same things that you’ve experienced. So like there’s no right or wrong answers. And you know, it it’s something where
I think it’s like I said, it’s just connecting. We’re we’re all realizing that we have a lot more similarities as string coaches than what we have differences. So it’s just fun to connect and kind of have that have that brotherhood and o of what we’re all what we’re all striving for, which is, you know, serving our serving our athletes.
Connor (04:10)
A hundred percent. And you know, what I always crack up about is like what exactly she said. There’s no right or wrong answers. Like straight in the conditioning is most gray profession of all time because there’s just so many different ways to see these adaptations to coach, relationship based coaching, whatever it is. Like there’s a million different directions to approach it. And so I always say, like, I’m not gonna have you come on and ask about the Krebs cycle, right? Like, cause that’s a right or wrong answer. I’m gonna have you come on and tell me what your philosophy is and what you wanna see. and I agree with you at the end of the day, it is about connecting. And so today is about connecting with Adam.
can you just give us a background of your career? what what your experiences have been, strength and conditioning, and then what you’re up to now.
Adam Kolberg (04:46)
Yeah, so I’ll I’ll start with just my like you said, my current title. I’m I’m the head strain coach at Fairmont State. we’re a a small D two. I think we have like thirty, five hundred student enrollment D two school in Fairmont, West Virginia. It’s about thirty minutes south of of Morgantown, where West Virginia University is, about an hour south of Pittsburgh, hour and a half s south of Pittsburgh. so it’s a very rural campus. really, really nice campus. we got, you know,
great, great support from our community and our student athletes are great. That’s one thing that I always I always try to harp on is our coaches have done a great job of of going out and and getting really really good quality kids first, like human beings first. and then that, you know, it makes my job easier. so I’ve been here for just going on year six. it’s been a great it’s been a great job, great opportunity. my wife and I are from
an hour and a and a half east of here. so it’s great to be around around our families and things like that. So it’s I’m very appreciative of being at Fairmont State. and then kind of like go on the opposite end of my career. So I I actually got started I interned with WV football back in twenty twelve, I think it was. Sorry, twenty fourteen, twenty fourteen.
I inter inter interned with them. and and there’s some things that I learned there about just how you run a program. and Coach Joseph’s still there, he’s still the the head strength coach there. here at here at W V, I’m I live in Morgantown. So at WV, he’s still the head strength coach there. Ton of respect for him. And then two of his two of the guys that were under him are now
Division one football strength coaches as well, head strength coaches. So Coach Bauer is at TCU and Coach Chad Snoggrass is at Old Dominion. And I have the most respect for those guys. And they really kind of molded me as a young intern while I was in grad school of just how do you run the program, how what what kind of standards and expectation expectations do you set for your athletes and even for yourself as a coach and for your for your assistant coaches, right? How do you just operate as a as a unit? so that was my initial start. And then I worked at a private facility here in Morgantown. and that was kind of that first opportunity for me to really.
coach. and then my wife, she did her her doctoral program in audiology. She she had to do a residency. So we moved to Florida for a couple years for her to do her residency down there. worked at a private facility down there where we did some combine prep. And then I moved over to a different facility where I was working with
just with baseball pitchers. That was like our our whole thing was we only worked on developing baseball pitchers. which wasn’t something that like I set out to be like and baseball wasn’t like the sport I set out to work with, but it was a really good learning curve for me because it made me like really hone in on like s the specific aspects of of training those athletes.
And how those athletes move. And then while I was there, I kind of reached out to University of Tampa and I was able, and they’re they’re like an elite division two program out there. so I was able to go and get a year of volunteer experience with them, reach out to the Yankees. they’re they’re minor league complex. And thankfully the the the guy that was the coordinator, Tom Rigo Fablis, he gave me an opportunity to come over and just shadow for for a day or two, have a couple conversations, and he was like, Look, we don’t have a position for you. He’s like, and I don’t really like
idea of unpaid internships. He’s like, but if you want to keep coming around, we’ll we’ll we’ll love to have you come around. so I did that. I basically was going over there and just essentially volunteering again as a coach. just wanted to get experience, just wanted to kind of continue to to build my network and my knowledge base. And that next year then he was like, hey, like because you’ve been here, because we appreciate what you’re doing, like we’re gonna basically create
position for you. So he had essentially went went to his higher ups and was able to build a part-time position for me. so I spent that year with the Yankees and then Yankees minor league program and then the Rockies I I got hired by the Rockies that next year and spent two years with them. And you know the one thing that I take away from them is with being with the Rockies is we as a staff
Number one, we were very competitive because they were at the time, this is when Sparta Force Plates was kind of at its at its heyday. So they were using Sparta to kinda very integrate it into their program. And number one, we as a staff were very competitive with like our Sparta scores and all and all of this. So it made us train, it made us push ourselves as coaches. and then we were just very competitive. Every time we would, you know, we’d wrap up a day, we’d kinda have an end of the day staff meeting and just be able to like
basically do what you do with a podcast is like you sit there and everybody just kind of voice their opinion of hey we think this went really well. and I had never really had that as much. Like I I I hadn’t worked in a in like a division one setting where you know I was with five other coaches and things like that. So it was really good for us to to kind of hold each other accountable and challenge each other and and almost compete with, you know, who was the smartest guy in the room, who was who had read the most books, who was up on the most research. so it was something that I really cherished that time with with the Rockies. and then once COVID hit,
They sh basically shut down minor league baseball. So they essentially sent us all home and were like, Hey, we have no idea what the future’s gonna look like.
So I had an opportunity to go down and work at Peak Performance Project P3 down in Atlanta. obviously and you’re I know you’re in the basketball world, like that’s they’re kind of on the cutting edge of the basketball, sports science world. So I knew it was a good opportunity for me to go get some kind of firsthand like biomechanics, you know, research experience, as well as as well as on the coaching side. So I spent four months down there, and then while I was there is when the Fairmont job opened up. and again, like I said, my my wife and I were we had always kind of wanted to potentially move back to Morgantown, move back to this area in West Virginia and be close to family. So it was one of those things where it’s
of like a perfect perfect scenario, perfect situation for us to do so and took over in February of twenty twenty one and like I said been here for into my sixth into my sixth year now. So it’s been it’s been great. So I know that’s a long winded answer, but I think it’s cool for like
other coaches to realize, especially coaches in my situation, I did not do my GA in strength and dishing. I did it in like basically exercise, physiology, cardiac rehab. so something where I kinda had to had to take the long route to get to where, you know, some other people have gotten right out of right out of grad school. I didn’t I wasn’t able to do that. I had to spend five or six years cutting my teeth at various stops to be able to get my resume built up and build my network up to be able to have the opportunity to to have a full time like collegiate position.
Connor (10:29)
Well, I really appreciate you sharing that experience. And there’s no such thing as long-winded answers on podcasts. I I love the longer you go, then the better it is because there’s just more information that we can pull from. I think what’s really interesting is like you said, you didn’t get your master’s in strength and conditioning from a, you know, traditional GA perspective or anything like that. Right. and so ultimately I feel like a lot of people can get almost bad advice, right? Where, you know, they say, okay, you can’t do this or you can’t do a different type of program because it’s just gonna set you behind.
And obviously that’s a success story for you. Similar similarly like to myself, I did my master’s degree in sports psych. I had no official GA. I just kind of reached out to Tennessee football and I like, Hey, can I intern with you guys? You know, ’cause I’m still interested in strength and conditioning. and it worked out for both of us, right? And so I think it’s I think it’s cool that you share that experience. I really appreciate that. And ultimately, okay, so correct me if I’m wrong, you’re from Morgantown originally.
Adam Kolberg (11:21)
So I’m actually from Western Maryland. I’m I’m from about an hour east
Connor (11:23)
Okay.
Adam Kolberg (11:24)
of of Morgan Show. So from Maryland, but I’ve basically lived, you know, essentially since I graduated high school, I I I have lif basically lived in West Virginia for the last sixteen out of the last eighteen years.
Connor (11:35)
Yeah. It’s so rare when opportunities come up to be able to get close back to home too. And so I’m sure you were
Adam Kolberg (11:38)
Yeah, yeah.
Connor (11:39)
stoked when that when that opened up and you knew you’d be able to be
Adam Kolberg (11:41)
Yeah.
Connor (11:41)
right back to where your family is.
Adam Kolberg (11:42)
Yeah, and that’s what we my wife and I we have a two year old. and I can’t imagine. Number one, I’m I’m I’m so thankful for being in pro baseball and I would encourage any young strength coach that’s interested in kind of being in the professional setting. That’s kind of the lowest entry point is being in pro baseball.
And it’s awesome getting to travel with the guys, getting to be around, you know, 30, some, 30, you know, 30, 18 to I mean, we got we had 17 year olds at Tom’s too, some 17 year old Latin American players. So, you know, 17 to 23, 24 year old kids, like you’re just you’re just part of the guys. Like at that at that point in time, you’re just you’re on the road with them, you’re traveling, you’re sleeping on the bus, you’re doing twelve hour bus rides, like and we were in Asheville, North Carolina. So I it’s we were also in a I was very fortunate to be in a very beautiful like part of the country. but even with that, like my wife and I were we were seven and a half, eight hours apart. So and we were we had just gotten
married
like a year or two before that. So we spent the first two or two or three years out of the first four years that we were married, you know, only getting to see each other once a month and then in the offseason. So it was something where I I’m super fortunate of my time in minor league baseball, but it’s something whereas now that I can be at the college setting and you know basically be at home, like be able to be coaching at home, it’s something that’s kind of the perfect situation. One thing I wanted to add because I’m gonna send this to him and I want to make sure he gets a shout out I had a professor when I was in undergrad getting ready for grad school that was the first person that really put in my mind
a strength coach because we had a lifting class so it was for our strength edition class and we had a an Olympic weightlifting class where they’re teaching us well they’re taught us Olympic weightlifting as well as the the the the big five the powerlifting the three powerlifting moves and the two Olympic lifts. And I just like naturally I mean just even when I was an athlete as a kid like I was naturally always kinda like I don’t know if you want to call it like the coach mentality like I was trying help my teammates and stuff like that. So he pre pulled me aside one day was like he’s like hey I saw you coaching like the people that were at your platform. He’s like have you thought about being a strength coach because at the time I was thinking like PT school or something and
He’s like, have you thought about being a strength coach? I like, honestly, coach, I or honestly, his name is Dr. Ed Pastilli. I like, Dr. Pastilli, I don’t really know exactly what that job looks like. I didn’t I didn’t have a strength coach. I grew up in a small town where I came from, that wasn’t, you know, we didn’t have that. So shout out to him because if he wouldn’t have mentioned that to me and had me go home and YouTube videos of of you know Coach Radcliffe at Oregon, Mickey Morati at Ohio State, like I wouldn’t have known what this profession even was. so it’s something that I I think that’s also a fun little tidbit of like sometimes you don’t even know you that you’re destined to be a strength coach, because now I can’t.
even imagine I can’t imagine now not being a string coach. Like that’s a that’s the crazy thing about it is like I can’t imagine doing anything else. Like I don’t think I think I would have been a okay PT, but I don’t think I would have been as good of a PT as what I try to be as a string coach, if that makes sense.
Connor (14:07)
Yeah, a hundred percent. No, that makes complete sense. And I it’s so cool to to hear these like small little connections, like you say, right? Like it’s just all it took was somebody saying one time, hey, I think you could be a good strength coach, and then it completely opens up your your life to a completely separate path. And I think that’s so cool. I’m glad you’re gonna send it to as well. I have a couple professors who were similar. I remember kind of feeling initially in college, like, Okay, I wanna be a strength coach, like freshman year. or sorry, well, actually I wanted to be a orthopedic surgeon. and then I had to take calculus and I found out I was way too dumb to do that. So
I transferred into exercise science and then I like, okay, I’ll be a strength coach. And then I kind of like over the next couple of years, I was like, Well, I don’t really want move that much. You know, I don’t know if that’s really like, and that’s a lot of the feedback I’ve heard from people who are actually doing it now. you know, I don’t know if the hours will necessarily fit what I want. and then so I kind of fell out of love with that idea a little bit. And then similarly I had another professor who was like, Hey man, like you are the most strength coach person I’ve ever met. Like you’ve gotta look into this a little bit. And so that’s why my master’s in sports psych was
I was deciding between sports like and training conditioning and and it just took a couple gentle gentle nudges or small adjustments to get me to where I really wanted to be. And like you said, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I mean, it’s just like such a great time and it’s such a fun and and passionate career. One thing I’m really curious about with your journey, and you mentioned specifically like you never really planned to get into baseball, but obviously you worked in baseball for a pretty significant amount of time.
What went into your willingness to be open to work with different sports? You know, I I I have noticed this trend a lot where people like to say, I I want to specialize or like I even do it myself. Like I’m a basketball strength coach. I wouldn’t want to work with any team outside of basketball. Like what went into your willingness to kind of explore other options and then obviously have success with it?
Adam Kolberg (15:47)
I think it was really just just taking every opportunity that was in front of me, like whatever was presented in front of me. Like if if if the Yankees, if if if Coach Fablis wouldn’t have if you would have just ignored every email that I sent him, then I think it would have been something where like, okay, well, maybe baseball isn’t isn’t also where I want to go. And I would have ended up reaching out to like, you know, the basketball coaches or the the football strength coaches at USF because again, USF was right down the road from where we were living in in Tampa at the time too. so it was just something where like those were the opportunities that that kind of presented themselves to me and it and I knew that I couldn’t
with my situation of not having a GA and not really having much of a network at that time, I I don’t think I could be too picky. I think it was something where I again like even the Rockies, again, I love working for the Rockies and and s you know, those guys are awesome and and their organization was great. But like I never like it wasn’t like my dream to go work for the Rockies. You what I Like it wasn’t it was something but that was this that was the organization that was willing to hey, like we want to hire you and and make you full time and give you a like l like a legit opportunity to coach at a high level. so it’s one of things where whether it would have been
The Yankees telling me no and me having to go and work at a basketball facility. Like it just baseball was just something that kind of was presented to me and I and I jumped on the opportunity. and something that again I’m very thankful of. And I it could have been it could have been soccer, it could have been basketball, it could have been it could have been any sport. It just happened to be baseball. And once I kind of got into that niche, it was it was easier to stay in it for as long as I could. and then, you know, but it the the other thing that I’ll say is, and we may end up getting into this, is is just from the organizational standpoint.
Of like there’s no way that
I could be I could do what I do at Fairmont where we over I oversee the development of four hundred and thirty plus student athletes. There’s no way I could have done that if it wasn’t for working in professional baseball because of just the way that that whole structure is set up to where you have to you have to be very detail oriented, very you know, very organized, and you have to have your like you have to know what every moving part is doing throughout the day. so I think it’s you know, it ended up being the best thing for me. Again, it wasn’t like the traditional, I’m gonna be a GA in football, then I’m gonna go work and be in football for the rest of my career. I think it was a a kind of a blessing in disguise and
terms like I didn’t know why I was getting into baseball. It was just the only job that was open to me and people were willing to take a chance on me. but it opened up the door for for the development that I needed to be to be the head strength coach at a at a division two school. A very com a very competitive regionally division two school that would where you know training is training’s a big factor in in our success.
Connor (18:07)
So for you it’s just it’s just the pure love of coaching. That’s why you’re a strength coach.
Adam Kolberg (18:11)
Yeah, it’s it’s literally could have been, you know, we talked about like our our acronym at Fairmont State is Falcon Pride. And the first part of pride is passion, right? And everything that we do, we should lead with passion. Because if you you know, passion comes from the root word of of passios, which means to suffer. Right. And I think if you’re not willing to suffer, like being a strength coach probably isn’t the best route for you because like you’re gonna go through two or three, four or five years where you’re not making much money, you’re spending time away from you’re you’re working, you’re volunteering as an intern for eight to ten hours plus a day, then you have to go work at a private gym and ba barely make minimum.
wage like you’re you know that that at least that’s a path I had. I’m I know nowadays it’s getting a little bit better where you know kids are being able to graduate their masters and go straight to making like a a decent salary. that wasn’t that wasn’t the case for me. So it’s something where like I, you everything I do is trying to exude that passion that I have for for developing student athletes. And it’s something that like I said I couldn’t imagine doing anything different. I can’t I couldn’t imagine being you know other than being a husband and a father, I couldn’t imagine being dispassionate about anything else. Like that’s just that’s
It’s literally the only things I think about. I I wake up and I go to bed thinking about Fairmont State athletics. Like that’s that’s how that’s how it is.
Connor (19:15)
And yeah, I I I just I love coaches such as yourself, right? I I remember we had a position open up at App State like two years ago. he was a strength coach at a a power four working with men’s basketball. And he reached out and basically, you know, applied for the position. And I was like, Hey, like just so you know it’s not a basketball position. You know, like I run basketball here. he’s I don’t care.
He’s like, no, just want to coach. Like he’s like, and I I want to be in locations where I’ve believe in the athletic department and and I can believe that we can make a difference, like you said, in the student athlete experience and and make a difference in their lives. And I was like, This is a dude. Like, and then of course we went into a hiring freeze, so we weren’t able to to hire him, which was a massive pain, right? Which I’m sure you know on the administrative end is never fun. but like those are the coaches to me who just will make the biggest impact, right? Or the ones who understand that it doesn’t really matter what my specificity or notoriety or chasing
a specific salary or social media fa whatever it might be, right? Like there’s a lot of ulterior motives. And I think at the end of the day, like the coaches who are gonna have the most success and find the most fulfillment are the ones who just straight up love coaching.
Adam Kolberg (20:17)
Hundred percent completely agree.
Connor (20:19)
Yeah. Okay. So you know, y you touched on it just briefly, but you’ve got a lot of student athletes, and you’ve got a big athletic department. How many strength coaches do you have on staff at Fairmont?
Adam Kolberg (20:29)
So full time it’s just me. and then I have a two gr two graduate assistants, which I’m very lucky. When I got hired, I originally only had one GA and then I, you know,
I essentially went to the president. I was like, look, we keep adding we keep adding student athletes. We keep adding sports. Like you gotta be able to give me some help here. so I I fought for and got a second GA position added last year, which is huge. and then I have essentially like a a part-time assistant coach position as well. So it’s it’s something where I wouldn’t be able to like recruit a coach that’s got exper like got like four or five, six years of experience. Like essentially what it ends up being is which again, I’m very thankful of this. I end up hiring somebody that you know, is already
either volunteering at at WVU or they work in a private facility in the area and they’re just looking for collegiate experience and they actually are getting the coach. so without without having those three assistants, like my first my first semester here, because I got hired in the spring, I didn’t have haven’t didn’t have a GA for that first semester. And I had two kind of two volunteer interns that only came down twice a week. So going from that first semester where I was
the only like actual coach coach that was there to now having three assistants. and we’ve even worked it into where, you know, I’ll have there was one semester where I had like a sports scientist, a sports science intern come down from WV and help us out with some of our some of our logistics on that end. I have two sports nutrition interns from WV that come down and help us out. So just be able to have, you know, that that that division one school up the road and them having a surplus of of interns and and stu undergraduate students that are looking for more experience. Like that’s been huge. and I think it’s something again like I would be done
to not leverage leverage that and and as much as I don’t love not paying people, I think it which I think is unfortunate, but I think it’s also a just a part of our profession. Like as much as it’s not really fair and, you know, having to do unpaid coaching opportunities, unpaid internship opportunities, like it does make you find out who’s actually passionate about this. Cause if you’re willing to hop in a car two or three days out of the week and drive 30 minutes to to just be able to get some experience and and not get any pay out of it, like.
That means you probably actually do care about this. but yeah, I have just those those three guys, a couple nutrition interns. and you know, we just make it work. It’s something where we we just gotta be very efficient with our with our time. we we essentially have the weight room open.
from depending on the time of the year, anywhere between 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. is the earliest we start and then we go until about 5 30, 6 o’clock at night. And we’re able to fit all 435 student athletes in at least twice a week, depending on the time of the year. So most of our Olympic sports pretty much only train twice a week throughout the entire year. And then like football, baseball, basketball, wrestling
They will go three times a week during their offseason and then twice a week during their in-season. soccer does that as well, volleyball does it as well. So I guess I guess not our Olympic. I guess more of our like yeah, essentially half of our teams do three times a year in the offseason and twice in season, and then the other half do two throughout the entire year, like tennis, swim, golf.
cross country track, they pretty much do two times a year throughout the year. which I think is for for our level of athletes, like we’re we’re getting we’re getting a lot of athletes sometimes that have never have never been in a weight room in their life. Like we will get kids on the swim team. We will get kids on the cross country team that have never stepped foot in the weight room. And and you know, in my opinion, my experience, like two days a week is is plenty an enough stimulus to to drive to you to move the needle and tr kinda kinda drive up their performance.
But yeah, I mean it’s definitely it it took me the first year or two to get all of it sorted out. and it’s just being organized, being proactive. Like it’s something where if I wait for and and our our sport coaches are great most of the time, but it’s if I wait until like this time of year to reach out to them, like, hey, when do you wanna when do you want your kids to train? Like it’s already too late. Like the schedule right now, I mean, we’re three weeks from the semester starting and our schedule is like ninety-five percent set in stone. So if a coach called me today and like, hey, we’re moving practice, we gotta move lift time, like, sorry coach, like everything’s everything’s already set in stone. We had that, we had that conversation.
A month and a half ago. Like I I have, you know, you might have 15 kids on the basketball team. I got 420 other kids that I’ve already based a schedule around. I can’t, if I change you know what I mean? So if I change one team, it’s gonna now affect five, six, seven other teams throughout the rest of that day. so it’s just being being productive, being being proactive with it and being and and also realizing that like, hey, like sometimes if practice is one to three and the team’s supposed to lift the three, sometimes they’re gonna stand around and talk for 15 minutes. So what used to be an hour lift, now we only got 45 minutes. Like we just have to be adaptive as coaches and
And figure out how to make that fit and and stick with the meat and potatoes of that training session. and you know, with that being said, our coaches are for the most part very understanding and very supportive of that. And they’re very respectful of the time. And we got one gymnasium. So we have basically four sports that are at some point in time kind of overlapping of being in season, like both of our basketballs, our volleyball, and then we have acrobatics and tumbling. and essentially they’re all overlapping at some point during the winter where
They all have to share one court. And how you know, how do you get four teams practicing on one gymnasium? so our coaches are our coaches are very used to that and being adaptable and being being efficient with their time. even even with our field, we have one turf field. So baseball, softball, soccer, football are all fighting for that same, you know, five to six hour window in the afternoons and evenings. So it’s just something that as as a coach at Fairmont, not even just as a strength coach, you have to be adaptive and you have to be proactive and you have to be respectful of of your colleagues and making sure that, you know, yes, you’re
To you, your athletes are the most important thing, but to every other coach, their athletes are also the most important athletes as well. so it’s definitely it’s definitely some nuance, but again, I I look at it as, you know, our R GAs when they graduate, like they’re gonna they’re gonna understand that. And they’re when, you know, I’ve I’ve had two guys that are
at the division one level now working and it’s something where like they leave Fairmont, they go to they go to, you know, one of my one of my guys is at Baylor. You get a Fairmont where you’re trying to squeeze every kid into the weight room where you get a Baylor and now you have three or four weight rooms. Like it makes it makes that part of your life as a coach. You you’ve already checked that box off like that. You don’t have to worry about the stress of of scheduling conflicts. That’s already been handled by just being at Fairmont. So very again, another long winded answer, but I think it’s I think it’s unique because we don’t we have a we have eight squat racks, we have twenty eight hundred square foot of weight room.
Like we gotta get four hundred and thirty five kids in there twice, two to three times a week. If if you’re not efficient, if you’re not organized, if you’re not like attentive to detail, like you’re just you’re not gonna be able to make it work. And you’re gonna have coaches pissed off, athletes that don’t feel like they’re getting the attention that they deserve. so it’s something that I, you know, again, talking about passion. Like I’m very passionate about all of our kids getting in the weight room.
Connor (26:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I you know, you bring up a funny point about touching on like Baylor, right? Or when I was at Texas Tech or Tennessee, like there’s seventeen weight rooms, right? Like almost every team has their own weight room. And it it was funny to me, you know, my first ever job was at Texas Tech and we’d be arguing with men’s basketball about what time we can get on the floor for, you know, the arena when we have just this brand new basketball practice facility with our own practice court that nobody else is allowed to use in our own weight room. and it’s just it’s funny because
Then hearing experiences of other places. And this coach was at a D2 previously. and so like just hearing about like when you get spoiled a little bit, how much you can kind of forget your roots about okay, we have to be as efficient as possible. or, you know, ultimately this is a shared university. It’s not, you know, the women’s basketball or volleyball university. It’s an entire athletic department. And so people have to be conscientious of each other. And obviously, like you said, it it’s it’s a it’s a tough system and something you have to stay on top of and and be organized with.
How many teams do you have personally?
Adam Kolberg (27:55)
Yeah, so I I mean essentially I still take responsibility for for a especially anything that would go bad, which we we’ve very rarely have anything like that happen. But at the end of the day I I tell my GAs like, look, no matter what happens, like this falls on me, right? Even if even if it’s something that happens under your watch with your team, it still falls on me because I I take responsibility for everything that happens in that weight room. but directly I oversee
Volleyball, soccer. We only have women’s soccer. So volleyball, women’s soccer, football. I my one GA does kind of take the the football developmental group. men’s and women’s basketball, rest men’s wrestling, and then baseball. so then our our our teams are divvied out, cross country and track are divvy out, men’s and women’s tennis are are given out to to GAs and assistants, softball is given out to a GA, swim is given out to a GA.
I know I’m forgetting a sport. We just added women’s wrestling.
so they’ll be one of my GAs cover them. And then also I cover A and T. I forgot about our acrobatics and Tumblr team. We’re and that’s another thing most people don’t aren’t familiar with acrobatics and tumbling. I don’t know if you’ve had anybody on the podcast that is working at a school that has that. but we essentially because I always like to give them a shout out too. We finished fourth in the country this year at nationals, and the three teams that we lost to are D1 schools. So Baylor, Oregon,
Connor (29:09)
Damn.
Adam Kolberg (29:10)
and Quinnipiac. So we are it’s we’re we’re elite in terms of our A and T team. So they’re they’re definitely one of the teams that I take a lot of pride in kind of how we run the weight room because you know, I just to give
An analogy the that I always describe it is RA and T team that that’s like having a room full of like middle linebackers in female form. Like they just want to come in and work now again, that’s not all of them, it’s but it’s 90% of the girls, they to come in and they’ll they’ll they’re always asking like they want to go heavier, they to, you know, they they want to work. they might they might complain at the very beginning of the lift, do we really have to lift today? But once you get them going and hey, like we we got 90% on the bar today, like they’re gonna get fired up and ready to go. so yeah, I have I think I I think it ends up breaking down where I have
you know, nine teams that I oversee and then my GAs each have two to three, each.
Connor (29:52)
How do you balance that? I mean, because again, like I do think there’s it goes back to me being the kind of like the spoiled aspect of it, right? Like, you know, it’s fun to work with different teams, it’s fun to organize, you know, different lifts
Adam Kolberg (30:03)
Yeah.
Connor (30:04)
and and be exposed to different cultures and teams and people. but you know, sometimes people can say like it it’s too much for me to have two teams, it’s too much for me to have three teams. Like, how do you balance having nine teams and also running a department?
Adam Kolberg (30:17)
Yeah, I mean I think I mean I wouldn’t be able to do it without the help of the GAs and knowing that I can trust them in terms of the teams that they are overseeing. So that that’s a big thing, number one. and letting them, you know, we we do have kind of clearly defined defined
like, you know, approach to what we do in a in like a unified approach, but it’s not, it’s not set in stone. Like if they want to, if they want to run a one by twenty with their with their athletes, as long as they can come to me and be like, hey, this is what I want to do, this is why I think it’s beneficial, like I’m gonna let them do it. there are some things that we need to do, which which I’ll come back to here in a second, kind of just some of our standard standard training philosophies that that I’m big on. But it’s really just again, it’s just being efficient. It’s time managed. Like like I it’s go back it go it go back to being in baseball. I if I wouldn’t have been in baseball, I wouldn’t have been able to figure out, you know, how do I get these 30 guys
into the weight room, which it sounds that sounds ways way easier than it does than it is ’cause it’s only thirty guys. But we also when I was in in Asheville, the stadium that we at we were at did not have a weight room in the in the stadium. So we would have to drive across town, go to like
A regular, I think it was a a an any time fitness, we’d have to go to an any time fitness, I would have to go in, I’d have one squat rack and that was all I had. And I had to get thirty guys into the weight room, figure out and we’d you I’d have them come in groups like five to seven. So just that adaptability from the jump was huge. and just the organization aspect. and then one thing that
I I I’m I’m a big fan of it as we used we use train aeroic. And I know some of our sport coaches don’t love that our kids have their phone in the weight room and I completely get that. Like there’s times where like it definitely they’re definitely not always being on their phone and being productive, but and that’s that’s one minor flaw to to the aspect of it. But if we didn’t have train aerobic and we didn’t have a way for us to
put the programs out for the kids, have them log everything and keep track of it. Like if I was trying to chase around 435 workout cards, it would just be physically impossible to do. Like it wouldn’t it would just not work. so I’m I’m very fortunate to have to have that set up and and
that aspect of of organizational stuff taken care of. but again, we’re just efficient. Like, and and the other thing that I didn’t really mention is when I say having teams in the weight room, like there’s only a handful of teams that are in the weight room by themselves. Like we have like softball lifts in the weight room by themselves. Our weight room can only hold technically only hold 32 kids because I I never put more than four kids on a rack and we have eight racks. Right. So softball has just the right number where they can be in there. Wrestling
Is usually in the weight room by themselves. Football will have like a four-hour time chunk where they’re in the weight room by themselves. and then the acrobatics and tumbling team has a time slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays where they’re in there by themselves. The rest of the week, if you walked into our weight room at any other time out of the day where other than those four or five teams are in there, you’re gonna see like you might see five baseball players on these two racks. You might see, you know.
tens men 10 men’s basketball players on this half of the weight room. you might see like a volleyball player making up a lift. You might see three golfers. You might see three tennis players. Like that’s just how it is. So even though those are the teams that I oversee and I’m writing the programming for, I’m also going to be in the weight room while there’s a tennis kid that I didn’t write their program for. And I’m going to, you know, say hi, how are you? Talk to them, make sure that they, you know, it’s it’s almost like we have it structured where the kids know when they need to come in, but it’s almost like a semi-private, like in a in the private sector. It’s almost where like we’re kind of coaching by committee while the while the athlete
In there because otherwise, if we only reserve time slots for those athletes between practice schedules and class schedules, there would be no way that we could make it work as efficiently as what we do. so and even this semester, we we’ve added some kids on our cross-country team, so the roster’s a little bit bigger. I’m gonna have on Thursday mornings, that’s one of our biggest football lifting groups. I’m gonna have like 25 football kids in there, and I’m also gonna squeeze in five cross-country kids. So my GA that runs cross-country, he’s gonna have those five cross-country kids on a squat rack all to their all to their own. And then me and my other GA will be running.
Running the football athletes. So it again, it’s just communication. We have to be, we as coaches have to know what the heck’s going on. Something that I’m big on is like, hey, even if you’re not working with this team or you didn’t program for this team, like even though they’re technically my team, you need to know what their program is so that when we’re setting up in between lifts, like when we have that five-minute turnover when one team leaves versus another team coming in, we need to be able to quickly get the weight room turnaround and know what’s going on. and we need to we need to know all the kids’ names, even if they’re a team that we don’t work with. We need to try to know all their names so that when they walk in, they may end up getting pushed to the other side of the weight room.
or even though they’re my my athlete, they may end up working with a different coach that day. So it’s just, it’s a unique situation. Again, it’s not always ideal. It’s something, you know, I I was actually just talking to the to the the head strength coach at WV, Coach Joseph. I was just talking to him last week and I told him I was like, you know, that’s that’s the blessing of the curse. The blessing is I get to, you know, impact and work with 435 kids. The curse is
I don’t really I’m not completely integrated with any team, right? I don’t I don’t I’m not in every meeting with football coaches. I’m not in every meeting with I don’t travel with the basketball team. I don’t you know I don’t travel with a football team. you know, it’s just something where football team sometimes will leave on a Friday to go play. Like I can’t leave. I still have I still have an entire work day ahead of me that I can’t just leave and be like, all right, everybody else is on their own. So again, the
That that’s, you know, I call it a curse, but it it’s it’s more of a blessing to being able to work with so many different different athletes and such a d different diverse population. it’s just but it is one of those things where I do think for a lot of our teams we are still a tone setter in terms of the team culture.
and and that’s I’ll I’ll tell this into the standards that we have, but we’re not completely like like I don’t go to practice. Like I you know, we don’t go like I don’t have a strength coach at football practice because we’re in the weight room coaching, right? So, you know, it might be something where if somebody’s goofing off in the weight room, like I’m gonna get on If they’re goofing off during the stretch at at football practice, I can’t I can’t be the the authoritarian, which I think is good. I think it’s something where I think most of that should be coming from the from the from their teammates, first of all, and from from the sport coaches second anyways. but just just so I can kind of
wrap that up. Like our standards in the weight room, we and this is this is something that I’ve been doing for a while and you’re kind seeing like i I think everybody’s starting to really kinda think the same the same thought process. Not that I like ahead of the curve. It’s just like the people that I was exposed to, like we’re gonna sprint, jump and throw.
Right. So at least at least once a week, all of our athletes are gonna do some sort of speed development. it may be a ten yard dash, it may be a thirty yard fly. It may just be, hey, we’re just gonna make sure that our s our warm up is very speed oriented and we’re just gonna do some speed dr like technique drills because you’re because you’re in season. Like our basketball guys, I mean, you know basketball, they’re sprinting up and down the court, right? So we’re gonna make sure that we’re
We’re we’re being smart about how we dose that, but I do believe in year round speed development, right? It’s something that we’re gonna try to get. and it may be something where if our starters are sprinting on the basketball court and our our reserves didn’t get in, like they’re gonna sprint with us at some point during that week.
Football, like our football guys, our our our soccer girls, like they sprint in season. Baseball, they’re sprinting in season, softball, they’re sprinting in season with us. Now, if they just went and played a fifteen inning extra, you extra inning game on Sunday and they’re supposed to come in and lift with us on Monday and they’re supposed to sprint. Like we’re gonna obviously be smart and know who played and know who didn’t and and dose that appropriately for each athlete. So sprint, jump, throw, obviously jumping, that’s all of our applied metrics, jump training. and then our throws, I call throws not just medball throws, but I I I consider Olympic lifts from the way that we break down our programming. I I I play Olympic lifts as throws. Like we’re throwing a bar.
Bell over our head, we’re throwing a barbell onto our shoulder. We’re we’re we’re throwing right as we press a barbell as a jerk as we jerk a barbell over our head. And we do a lot of dumbbell variations too. Like our basketball guys, like we don’t do barbell snatches, but I’ll have I’ll have our six foot ten basketball guys doing dumbbell snatches. Like I think it’s a great exercise for those guys. kind of allows them to self-organize a little bit better and kind of build that that you know movement literacy with those guys and just make them more well-rounded.
so that’s kind of our our our front end and then our back end is very simple. Dan John. Dan John was a big inf I I don’t know Dan John. He’s like kind of one of those golden gooses I’d love to get on my podcast at some point.
Connor (37:37)
Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (37:37)
but he was a big influence on as a young coach and just kind of simplifying things. Like so all of our athletes are gonna push, pull, hinge, squat, and do loaded carries. Right. So it’s something that we we keep it very simple. So again, I don’t even like I don’t get on my coaches about, hey, you know, you did front squat this day, and then you did, you know, whatever.
RDLs the next day, as long as there’s a hinge and as long as there’s a squat some point during the week, as long as they have a some sort of read like logical justification of why those things are in there, like I I think I think
Again, with the training age of our athletes, and and and the time constraints that we have, we have to be efficient. So if if you’re if you’re a coach and you’re really, really good at coaching back squats and you’re really, really bad at coaching front squats, and that’s your logic of this is why we’re gonna do this, I’m not gonna have any issues with it. As long as you can can you know, as long as you can explain that to me, we’re not gonna have any issues. As long as you’re kind of fitting it into the you’re filling those buckets. I don’t really care what you put in those buckets as long as those buckets are being filled and we’re and we’re, you know, making sure that
We’re providing that robust training stimulus for our athletes. And and within all that, that’s you know, you might you might be running whatever type of periodization model you want to run. Like I I don’t really stress too much about that. but it we just have to make sure that we’re kind of covering those eight things, right? Sprint, jump, throw, and then our fundamental human movements.
Connor (38:49)
Yeah, I I think this is such a valuable thought process to have, especially like you said, with the time constraints that you have and the training age. you know, ultimately like it’s funny to me where people can almost feel like if they’re not doing the most complicated programming or periodization possible, that all their muscles are gonna go away and they’ll completely, you know, pass away. And like what is the I’m f I’m blanking on the name of it right now, but just the is it Milo with the progressive overload? Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (39:16)
Me yeah, me love croton,
yeah. Milo croton, yep.
Connor (39:19)
Yep.
Yep. And so, you know, ultimately, like that’s the first thing we all learn. Like this is something that’s been around for ages. And so if we progress in weight, if we have quality movement patterns, we’re doing all the things that are are athletic that will help us get better, we’re gonna get better in the weight room. And it doesn’t have to be this crazy, insane program that’s ultimately gonna be, like you said, anti your time constraints. It’s gonna be really tough for you to program. It’s gonna be really hard for athlete buy in because you guys are gonna be coaching multiple teams at some point.
and so I love your philosophy with that. I think it fits really well with your department, and I’m sure you’ve seen success with it. Obviously, that’s why you run the system.
Adam Kolberg (39:53)
Yeah, and again it’s something where it it allows like I’m hiring I’m hiring coaches as GAs and I’m again I’m expecting them day one to be able to come in and coach. And part of that is writing programming, right? And if you are if you feel overwhelmed with I don’t know what I don’t know what I should be doing, I don’t know what exercise, that’s why we keep it simple, right? Just you have eight things that you need to check off throughout the week. You need to s you know, sprint jump throw and then the five hundred fundamental movements. If you’re if you’re doing those things,
You’re 90% of the way in terms of providing our athletes exactly what they need. Right. And again, you
Connor (40:23)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Kolberg (40:23)
can argue from there on out. Like once we get a, once we get a you know, a third or fourth year basketball player, which unfortunately doesn’t happen as much anymore, but because if they’re good enough, they’re gonna move up, they’re gonna move up a level. We just had a guy last year, like came in for one year. He keeps dropped down from a D1.
came to our came to our school, was one of the best players in the conference, and he left again and went to a D1. So for me, it was like, I’m not going to take him and try to expose him to some crazy training program. I just want to make sure that what I’m providing him, he’s executing at a high level. We talk about, you know, rep integrity all the time, like that’s everything that we do. And and I, and I, you know, and I’m going to put this out on the internet, something that I I brag about all the time is
If you stepped into our weight room at Fairmont, my hope is that you would be impressed with how our athletes are performing their exercises, right? We’re not doing anything cutting edge other than we just want to kick everybody else’s ass in terms of our rep integrity. Like that’s what we want to do better than everybody else. and we and we just want and we wanna have fun doing it. We wanna we wanna be motivating to our athletes and we wanna let them know why we’re doing things the way we’re doing it, why we’re doing it at high level. but we just hold them to those high expectations. And you know, you you mentioned like I’ll talk to interns and because I I also run you know internship program as well.
And I’ll talk to them and we talk about the how how, in my opinion, how simple it should be to do program design. Now, periodization is different. Periodization, that’s that’s a little bit more nuanced. There’s a lot more factors in, but in terms of program design, all you’re doing at that point is just it’s just exercise selection. Right. And
Connor (41:40)
Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (41:41)
we know that if you want to get your legs stronger, it’s pretty simple. You just need to squat or deadlift or or lunge or whatever it is, right? Those fit those patterns. And if you want to jump higher, okay, well, you need to jump and you need to have your strength development from those fundamental movements. but
The thing is, we I tell them all the time, like they they they get caught blown away by like, is it really that simple? I’m like, yes, because you know, that’s that quote. We we try to do the simple things savagely well, right? If we’re doing those things, if we’re doing if we’re squatting at a high level, if we’re deadlifting at a high level, if our Olympic lifts, and again, not every team Olympic lifts, I think there’s definitely a a time and place for them. but if you’re Olympic lifting at a high level or if you’re just doing trap bar jumps or dumbbell loaded jumps, whatever it is, at a high level with high intent, and that’s like we’ll we’ll get we’re fortunate enough, we’ve done a lot of fundraising, so we have OVR, so we have velocity-based devices.
for for our Olympic lifts. we use jump mats for like loaded jumps so that we, you know, it it’s something where you know you’ll have your linebacker and your running back and your and your receivers. They all have a certain percentage of weight that they’re doing with their dumbbells and then they’re all competing with what their what their vertical jump is on the jump mats. Right. So it’s we’ve driven up the intent, but
We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re not doing anything that that somebody else hasn’t done. We’re just trying to do it as good, if not better, than everybody else out there. Right. And again, I I say put it on the internet because it’s something that like I I presented at a conference a couple of years back and obviously there’s you know thirty or forty string coaches I I look I literally looked at all and I’m like, that’s how we’re gonna win.
We’re we’re not always gonna get the most talented kids, but we’re gonna we’re gonna hopefully develop them faster than what you are and we’re gonna be able beat beat those other teams that are in our area, in our region, just because we’re we’re we’re trying to train our kids at a higher level. Right. And when I say higher level, I mean higher repetition integrity, not higher level in terms of the exercise. Like we’re not doing like I love Cal Deeds, but we’re not doing we’re not doing what Cal Deeds is doing. Like we just we don’t we don’t have those athletes, we don’t have that time, right? And we and we just don’t have that training age.
you know, to be able to do those things. Now is it something where every once a while we might throw in some some band assisted jumps? Yeah, we might throw those in every once a while, but that’s not that’s not the meat and potatoes of what’s what’s getting us from point A to point B and really driving up our performance.
Connor (43:38)
Which is it’s almost it’s almost shocking to me that that’s like almost a controversial take now. Right. Like I mean, like
Adam Kolberg (43:43)
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
Connor (43:44)
it’s it’s insane because I just remember and I’m I’m sure similar to you, like I I’m we’re very aligned in our our philosophies and you know, just growing up and just and just reading all these different books or watching these movies like Pumping Iron or you know, Bigger, Faster, Stronger, like it fostered my love for strength and conditioning. And again, it was nothing crazy. It was just people coming in and doing the work and doing it right and then seeing results.
And so I I commend you and I really appreciate what you do with your GAs too, because I actually really love when there’s intern or GA assignments and they have to reach out to coaches and and speak with them because again, it’s a gray area. You’re still gonna see results with these, you know, complicated processes and different things like that. But I love when young strength coaches reach out to me because they’re it time and time again, I’m sure you’ve seen the same thing, is it’s always well, programming is the main thing I’m concerned about, you know, and I’m like, you don’t you just don’t worry about it. Like
Seriously, don’t you will have time, you’ll have a whole career to get better at programming and do the things you want to do. You’re gonna see the best results from, like you said, the movements you just previously mentioned. Like what you need to worry about is, you know, are you gonna be able to get your athletes to buy in? Are your athletes gonna believe in what you’re saying? You’re gonna you’re a GA, you’re a young coach, you’re gonna have athletes who are older than you now, especially in this NIL and five and five era. Like, can you get them to believe in what you’re trying to say? Can you develop relationships with your sport coaches? Do you know how to network and resource outside of what you know originally? Like
Those are the skills that are going to help you in the long run. And ultimately, like programming is the kind of one of the last things that we really need to worry about. Because as long as, like you said, there’s intent, there’s rep integrity, there’s quality, then you’re they’re going to get better.
Adam Kolberg (45:16)
A hundred percent. And then again, that’s like if you’re debating on hey, should we be doing front squat or should we be doing back squat? Like I I my arg my first question is well, which one can you coach at a higher level? Are you better at
Connor (45:25)
Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (45:26)
coaching front squats or are you better at coaching back squats? Are you better to get your athletes like you might be better at coaching front squats or you might just like front squats or believe in the benefit, but your athletes also like you know, we like I’ve had GAs that have tried to take our our men’s tennis team through front squats. And again, I love front squats. I think they’re an amazing exercise, but the men’s tennis team doesn’t really they just don’t enjoy Right. And there is an
Aspect, as much as I don’t always love to admit it, there is an aspect of we have to sometimes make a compromise for the greater good of these athletes, right? And it may be something
Connor (45:54)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Kolberg (45:54)
where, you know, one of the things that came up a couple years ago, our we had a we had a baseball player that came in with a big Olympic weightlifting background and he came to me and he Hey coach, why don’t we do a lot of Olympic lifting on the baseball team? Yeah, you I see other teams doing it. I said, Well, he was a catcher. I said, Well, go to all your pitchers, go to all your teammates, and ask them if they want to do front squats for
two to three months until we build up the you the the technique and the capacity to be able to catch, you know, weight heavier than what you we have to be to squaw front squat heavier than what you can power clean. I was like, go do that. I was like, ’cause I tried that my first year here and and the baseball team like just didn’t buy into front squats. Whereas if we go back squats, if we go if we go front the th the thing is they’ll do reverse lunges. Like they’ll do they’ll do unilateral stuff. now it it’s gotten better. We definitely like that’s something we’ll start off every every fall semester with front squats just to kind of groove that that pattern. but it was something when I first got there, like they j there’s just a lot of pushback and it’s like there’s a point in time where
So you have to, as a coach, you have to like put your own kind of ego, I guess, and your own biases aside and be like, okay, well, I just need to get these kids to train and believe in me right now. And again, I got hired in February. So baseball season was like three weeks from starting. Right. So it’s like, okay, I have I I have three weeks to try to get these guys bought in before their season starts.
Why would I try to force us, you square peg into a round hole and not get any buying from these guys? Right. So it’s something where, you know, I was like, all right, I I basically met with the the the older guys and things like, hey, what what have you guys been doing? What do you want to do? Let’s let’s make it work. Let’s let’s get through this semester and then we’ll reevaluate. so it’s just, you know, there there’s there is always that aspect too of like, yes, just because I’m the coach and I have my own opinion about what’s best for the athletes, I also have to take each athlete and each team into consideration in terms of like, what am I gonna be able to do to maximize
the time that I get with them. Cause if I spend five minutes of a lift arguing about why we’re front squatting versus back squatting, no, I’ve I’ve I’ve literally just wasted part of one of our two sessions that we get with that team. Right. So it’s just not worth it. It’s something where, and again, I hate, I hate to admit that you have to concede to your athlete sometimes, but you do. You really do. You have to you have to make sure that you’re getting the buy-in from them. And the thing is if they’re willing to do another exercise that provides you essentially the same stimulus.
Coach the heck out of that exercise, right? And and you can still add modifications to that. You can still progressively overload that. You can still add variety to that. so it’s something where it’s it’s always a learning curve. And it’s different every semester, right? We’ve had this year with like we used to not really Olympic lift our men’s basketball team. This year, our men’s basketball team was some of the best like technique wise in the weight room.
I mean, we had guys doing 225 you know at six foot nine. Like that’s just I don’t know what about maybe at your level that’s more common, but at our level, like that’s not a very common, you know, that’s not a very common power clean for for a six foot nine basketball
Connor (48:24)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Kolberg (48:25)
player to to number one even buy into, but number two, have the the proficiency and the the the mental fortitude to even want to work up to something that heavy. And this was like a month into the season too. Now we backed off a little bit
Connor (48:36)
Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (48:36)
after that, but this was like still in November before we went home for Christmas break. So it was something where it’s it’s a year by year thing, team by team, athlete by athlete.
being out again, that’s back to what I said about as a coach, is being able to be adaptable and still stick to your standards, stick to what’s important to you, but understand that we are here to serve these athletes and we have to also put them in a position to where they’re going to want to do. You know, I I we just hired a new basketball coach. We met and I you know, I kind of told him our philosophy and he said that here’s the three things I want. Because I asked him, I you know, what metrics you want? What do you what what is there any sports sign things that you want me to be aware of or numbers that you want to you know want to see? He’s like the three things I want is
I want the kids to compete. I want the kids to to want to come into the weight room. He said, and I want those kids leaving the weight room every day feeling like they’ve gotten better. I’m like, that’s that that’s the easy, those are the easiest, the easiest goals and the easiest metrics that you can provide or have
Connor (49:21)
Easy, easy. Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (49:25)
me provide because you know, w very rarely do we have an at do we have situations where athletes are like, like, and again, you get deep in the season, nobody nobody wants to do anything, right? It’s like nobody wants to go to practice, nobody wants to even go to, you it’s just because you’re just beat and you’re you’re mentally fatigued and tired of seeing the same the same 15 to 20 people every day.
But in terms of like our kids wanting to come into the weight room and compete, like that’s not that’s never really been a problem that we’ve had at Fairmont. Like that’s again, I’m very fortunate of that. I think the culture we’ve created as well as the type of kids that our coaches are bringing in, like they they want to compete, they want to get better. and and I’d say this just again, shout out to our our our women’s athlete, our female athletes, because I think a lot of times we’re getting, you know, the difference between a D two athlete and a D a D one athlete.
females female athlete is a lot of the D ones obviously there’s a size difference and all that and in a in a physical ability difference. But I think a lot of the D one girls probably have some sort of training experience. Where we’re we’re gonna get girls that have never stepped stepped foot in the weight room before. They have no idea. So if we don’t make that a welcoming environment for them, a welcoming, a fun, a competitive environment where they want to come back in and do that, it’s gonna make our jobs a lot harder. And again, I think that’s a shout out to our coaches to getting girls that are open minded and wanting to compete. but also just a shout out to the culture that we’ve been able to
kind of develop over the last five and a half years to where at like again our athletes enjoy coming in and and I say that all the time too is if I’m not having fun in the weight room as like as the coach, how in the hell would I expect
the athletes to have fun? Like, you know what I’m saying? Like we make
Connor (50:44)
Exactly. Exactly.
Adam Kolberg (50:47)
everything so competitive where like
If I if I did my vertical jump and I outjumped one of our linebackers, I’m gonna I’m gonna let him know that he just got out jumped by a 36-year-old washed up coach,
Connor (50:56)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Kolberg (50:57)
right? So it’s one of the things where like I’m gonna let him know. and and it’s something that I we’re gonna have that competitive nature, especially with the guys. We’re gonna basically get on those guys and and talk shit to them. Whereas the girls, it’s like, hey, we’re gonna hype them up for every little PR that they do. that first time they ever hit a pull-up. Like that’s gonna be the most important. In my mind, we should make that the most important thing that they’ve ever done in their life.
Right. Like that hitting up hitting their first pull-up, hitting their first five their first weighted pull-up. We had a girl on the soccer team last year doing weighted pull-ups with a twenty-five-pound plate. Like for s for multiple reps. Right. And that like that’s something
Connor (51:26)
It’s awesome.
Adam Kolberg (51:26)
where like that’s something where I look at that and I’m like, we are we are we’re doing a lot of good things. We are doing a lot of good things to drive up that effort level. because I I’ve been in other places where that’s just not that’s not the case. That’s not the case.
Connor (51:40)
Yeah. Young coaches listening, this is a guy you want to listen to. I’m serious. I mean, I’m I’m not trying to gas you up or anything, but if you’re a young coach that’s listening to this podcast,
Adam Kolberg (51:46)
I appreciate it.
Connor (51:48)
this is somebody you want to listen to because this is ultimately where the success is gonna be seen, right? And and exactly what you said at the end too. This is also where it’s fun because people compete, people get better. We give them challenges that aren’t too hard, but something that’s gonna make them understand that they’re getting better in the weight room and that it’s a place that serves a purpose and there’s a reason why you’re in here and it’s not just
to look cool or or do different things that won’t really drive performance to the fullest effect. So with that being said, like what is the name of your podcast? where would be the best way to listen to it? If anybody’s listening now and really interested in what you’re saying, how would be the best way to access it?
Adam Kolberg (52:24)
Yeah, so my podcast is called the Raw Strength Coach Podcast. I’ve been doing it for I think almost two years now. and it’s on YouTube. I have not I’m definitely not tech savvy enough to get it on to like Spotify. I probably do need to do that at some point in time. I I kind of dabbled in doing that, but I I didn’t because I know it’s I again a lot of people I listen to most podcasts, like I listen to your podcast on Spotify, like on my drive to work. Right. So I
Connor (52:45)
Yeah.
Adam Kolberg (52:46)
realize that YouTube’s not maybe not always the best.
having that as as the only as the only platform. but yeah it’s on YouTube. I’m I’m approaching episode fifty. I think we’re gonna I’m gonna hit number 49 at some point here at the end of the summer. and it’s been a it’s been a really good opportunity for any I get better. I’m sure you you would agree to this too. Like I get better as a coach, Bobby don’t I just talk to so many other coaches like across the spectrum. Like
Connor (53:07)
yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Adam Kolberg (53:09)
it’s it’s so it’s been so awesome for that.
But they can also email me. Like my email is on the website. It’s just a coberg at Fairmont State dot dot EDU. they can definitely reach out to me on there. I’m on Instagram. It’s a A K-O-L-B three R G. So a three instead of the E. I’m on there. not as not not a lot. I try to limit my my screen time, but I’m definitely on there if people want to follow me and shoot shoot me a message. and just just one other thing with with if you don’t mind, like with with with young coaches, you know, I think and again I’m biased, but I think, you know
Having been at WVU as an intern back at the beginning, like I would not know how a high-level Division I weight room functions if it wasn’t for that. And it it definitely taught me that that leadership quality and that that culture development. But in terms of actually knowing how to coach, if you’re a young strength coach out there, like you’re you’re still an undergrad and you’re looking for like,
Go get a GA in a division two school. Like you’re or or at least make sure if you’re gonna get a GA in a division one school that you’re actually going to be in charge of teams and you’re actually gonna get chances to coach reps. because if you’re not coaching reps, right, it it’s it’s really, really hard to get better as a coach. Like you can you can
Again, listen to podcasts, you can read audio, you can read books, listen to audiobooks, you can go to seminars, you can watch YouTube videos, but if you’re not actually getting those mental reps or sorry, getting those physical reps, like the mental reps really don’t don’t pay off as much. and and another another thing that we’re really big on.
At Fairmont, I I’m really big on is our coaches have to train. Like we have mandatory staff left. Like we have to train. we again we as coaches are competing. I’m sure you’ve probably seen like the the Tim Riley Apex Challenge. Like we as a staff have been doing the Apex. This will be our th we’re do it this fall. This will be our third time doing it as a staff. and it’s one of those things where we’re competing. Like it’s it’s something where I part of it, part of it me selfishly is I don’t want to just fall apart, right? I’m 36. I don’t want to just fall apart and and and lose lose.
every ounce of athleticism that I’m still hanging on to, but it’s the other aspect of it is is like, okay, well, we did the Apex Challenge, you one of my GAs like, okay, well you’re you are not as good at the sprinting or you’re not as good at the mile or you’re not as good at the s at the the deadlift or you’re not as good at the bench press. Okay, well now it’s now you can write your own training program and when we’re in staff
Connor (55:20)
Mm-hmm.
Adam Kolberg (55:21)
lift together and we’re all in there getting better, now you have goals that you have set. so I think I think training is huge. I think as a young coach, like if you’re not training, if you’re not passionate about training and again most I think most street coaches get into this ’cause we are passionate about training, but
I you I I think it’s something where you you need to have that, you know, something I talk about. You need to have that confident humility. Like you need to understand that yes, there’s some things that you might know. And yes, you might have been a former D one football player and you’re you’re a freak athlete, but you need to be humble enough to realize, okay, well, what worked for a football player isn’t gonna work for, you know, the swimming and dive team. So now as a as a as a GA, you need to train as if you’re trying to get better at swimming and dive. You need to train as if you’re trying to get better and again, I’m not I’m not into sports species like specific training. I’m just saying you need to get into that frame of mind.
of okay, I’m coming into this with XYZ experience. How can I take my own experience and through training develop empathy for the athletes that I’m gonna work for work with? Right? Because then it’s something that
You know, I can I can talk shit with our football players and our basketball players, but if I do that with some of our other other athletes, like I might actually hurt their feelings, right? And that’s not the intent that I’m trying to make. The intent I’m trying make is pull out every ounce of motivation out of you. and sometimes you need external motivation, whereas like for maybe like a female athlete, like I actually have to hype them up and pull out that intrinsic motivation because a lot of times they’re just they’re afraid of how freaking strong and athletic they actually are.
Right. We have to we have to help them understand just how how awesome and you know and badass they actually are. So again, confident humility, train, network, right? Listen to stuff, educate, communicate with other coaches. That that’s all all those advice I would give for for young coaches.
Connor (56:51)
Yeah, that’s huge advice too. And you know, I I mean at the simplest level too, running programs that you give to your athletes, right? It it one helps them understand that okay, you know, this guy’s at least gonna do what he’s asking me to do. but then two, you also find the weak points, right? I’ll I’ll never forget the I had a workout that it was RDLs, chin ups, alternating V ups and farmers’ carries. And at the all the athletes were like, I can’t hold on to anything, like my forearms are, you know, like so pumped up. And I was like, Whatever, you’re being babies. And then like went through it myself and I was like, okay.
You know what? Like this is actually a little bit difficult. So I
Adam Kolberg (57:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
Connor (57:22)
think it’s even more fantastic advice. Adam, man, thank you so much
Adam Kolberg (57:24)
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Connor (57:25)
for coming on, dude. Like I I really appreciate it. Again, I really appreciate what you shared here. I think it’s really important for the young coaches to listen to this and hear this. I know we mentioned your podcast and your Instagram and everything already. So I’m glad we we got the opportunity to do that. You know, outside of that, I just want to say thank you. It was a fantastic episode and I really appreciate it.
Adam Kolberg (57:43)
Yeah, coach, appreciate you having me on here. And like I said, we’re gonna we’re gonna have to run this back with with getting you over on on the on the Raw Strength Coach podcast. Cause I’m I’m I’m excited
Connor (57:50)
Hell yeah.
Adam Kolberg (57:51)
now to I’m excited now to hear from you because it sounds like we we have some similar kind of thought processes on some things. So it’ll be cool. But yeah, I appreciate Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But I appreciate
Connor (57:56)
A hundred percent. It’s just gonna be two dudes reaffirming each other. So yeah.
Adam Kolberg (58:01)
I appreciate you having me on here. It was it was a great opportunity. and I hope everybody hope everybody enjoys it and takes something away from it.
Connor (58:08)
A hundred percent, man. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Adam Kolberg (58:11)
Yep, thank you.
