Coach Coves

John after beating Peter to the tomb

The Kelce brothers accidentally explained one of the longest-running training mistakes in professional sports in under 30 seconds. A pitcher's delivery takes 1.5 seconds. The rest period before the next pitch is roughly 20 seconds. A starter who throws 100 pitches in a game produces somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes of total physical exertion across a 3-hour window. The work-to-rest ratio is approximately 1:20. That ratio maps almost perfectly to the ATP-CP energy system, the anaerobic pathway that powers movements lasting under 10 seconds. Sprinting. Jumping. Swinging a bat. Throwing a 97 mph fastball. Every meaningful action in baseball lives in this system. Distance running trains the opposite system. Aerobic metabolism. Slow-twitch muscle fibers. Type I fibers that are smaller, produce less force, and prioritize fatigue resistance over power output. Elite sprinters carry 60-80% fast-twitch fibers. Elite endurance athletes carry 60-95% slow-twitch. A 2008 study on collegiate baseball players found that combining endurance training with power training produced measurable drops in power output. You are literally remodeling the engine in the wrong direction. Training the aerobic system when every sport-specific action runs on anaerobic fuel. The tradition started decades ago because games last 3 hours and coaches confused game duration with physical demand. A game lasting 3 hours does not mean the athlete is exerting for 3 hours. A pitcher standing on the mound between pitches is recovering, not working. The correct training analog is a sprinter who runs 100 meters, walks back, and goes again. Driveline Baseball, Eric Cressey, and every major sports science program has been publishing this data for over a decade. Strength coaches at the MLB level largely moved to sprint-based and med ball protocols years ago. But the foul-pole-to-foul-pole jog still persists at the high school and college level because the coaches who played in the 90s trained that way and never updated. The Kelces just explained it to 3 million people faster than any journal ever could.

Louie Simmons on Conditioning for Football Players… “Football is a knock you out, back up, knock you out, back up sport. When you run gassers, you turn explosive athletes into endurance athletes.” You must train the correct energy systems for success in Sport!🙌🏻

This is so brain dead I can’t even. Every single play involves all out sprints when you’re fatigued for 3/4 of the players on the field. And even then ask the pulling guards if they ever have to sprint while fatigued.

Public Service Announcement: You don’t need TEs (or fullbacks) to run the ball effectively!

A dad was grilling steak for his teenage son. The son scolds his dad: “Don’t burn the steak. CAREFUL! Don’t mess up! You’re gonna mess up!” The dad snaps, “I’ve made steak before. Just let me grill.” Son: “I know, dad. I was showing you what it’s like when I’m playing sports.”