How do you spend your off season? Do you relax, lean back and rest? Maybe you spend time with your family until the season starts. What you do in the off season is detrimental to your success and goals. It’s obvious that players take some time to heal and rejuvenate, the entirety of the regular season can be excruciating on the body. However, it’s important to have a balance. 

The off-season gives you the time to dedicate an accumulation of learning to proper movement, muscle building, mobility improvement and power training. This combination will help you become a revamped overall athlete. This is the groundwork for improving performance and excelling once competition season returns. This is the period of time when it’s time to focus on fundamental movement and strength development.

There are three beneficial reasons to stay busy this off season. Staying active can prevent Injuries, improve overall strength and improve movement patterns. Professional athletes need to be constantly working on their craft. Exercises such as hinging, pushing, squatting and pulling can be the difference maker. These very basic variations of patterns are the answer to building a strong and healthy body that is likely to not break down or become injured. 

Our bodies are designed to move. Physical training focusing on movement can enhance overall mobility patterns and will simultaneously improve your strength. Strength and conditioning is important in track and field because the athlete that is in the best shape and most prepared should win.

The reasons listed are the intentions of Coach Tony Holler‘s work, creating “Feed the Cats”. It’s a revolutionary way of training, coaching, and teaching that values specificity, essentialism and performance. A program so popular it’s made its way to American football. 

Coach Tony Holler has four decades of experience in track and football. A member of the Illinois Track and Field Hall of Fame as well as the Co-owner of the Track Football consortium. 

In the video below Coach Tony Holler breaks down the fundamentals in a simple and detailed way. Everything you need to know, from how to train and how not to train. Get in exceptional shape and come out on top. ( Click on the image below for video ) 

Coach Ryan Banta has been a Track & Field coach for 19 years. He is also the author of “The Sprinter’s Compendium” and writes for elitetrack.com and speed endurance.com. He is the Head Women’s Track & Field coach at Parkway Central High School starting in 2003. He is also the Head Women’s Cross Country coach at Parkway Central High School starting in 2013. He also has USATF Level II in sprints, relays, endurance, and hurdles. Coach Banta is also the MTCCCA VP and an MSHSAA Board Member.

In this course, Coach Ryan Banta reveals multiple weekly practice plans for the 400m and 800m athletes that you need to know in order to improve their times. He emphasizes the necessity to train your athletes for both races. If you are a coach who wants to make your 400m and 800m runners stronger and faster, then this is the course for you!

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a Vimeo video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block Vimeo videos.

If you would like to see more information about Coach Banta’s entire presentation, click this link: Critical Zone Athlete – 400 & 800 Training – Ryan Banta

Lactate Workouts for the 400 Explained with Coach Tony Holler.

Tony Holler is the track coach at Plainfield North High School. Tony retired from teaching chemistry after 38 years in the classroom and has 40 years of coaching experience (football, basketball, and track). Tony Holler is a member of Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and Co-director of Track Football Consortium along with Chris Korfist. Holler created the revolutionary, “Feed the Cats” in 1999.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block YouTube videos.

If you would like to see more information about Coach Holler’s entire presentation, click this link Feed the Cats: Sprint the 400

Cat Jumps” Drill for Sprinterswith Tony Holler,
Plainfield North High School (IL) Head Boys Track & Field Coach;
2015 ITCCCA Hall of Fame Inductee;
over 35 years of coaching experience at the high school level

“Feed the Cats” is a revolutionary new method of training sprinters from Plainfield North High School head coach Tony Holler. No longer must you put your sprinters through long workouts that make them feel crushed by the end! This program will help you teach your sprinters to run fast using micro-segments of work. Holler shows how you can help athletes learn how to run fast without sprinting.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

For more information about “Feed the Cats”: A Complete Sprint Training Program, click here:

Sled Pulls for Acceleration with Chris Parno,
Minnesota State University Associate Head Men’s & Women’s Track & Field Coach / Recruiting Coordinator – Sprints & Hurdles;
2x NSIC Indoor Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year;
2019 NSIC Outdoor Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year;
5x USTFCCCA Indoor Assistant Coach of the Year – Central Region;
2x USTFCCCA Outdoor Assistant Coach of the Year – Central Region;
Has coached:;
6 National Champions,;
89 NCAA All-Americans,;
the 60m hurdles D2 all-time record – (Myles Hunter – 7.53),;
97 NSIC individual/relay Conference Champions,;
214 NCAA national qualifying performances (provisional/auto),;
10 Drake Relays Champions

Acceleration is one of the key biomechanical principles to sprinting. Coach Chris Parno, through a PowerPoint presentation and on-track instruction, presents the best methods to assist sprinters who want to achieve their individual maximal velocity through a proper acceleration pattern. Sharing a rich resource of sport science research and his own observational and accumulated expertise, Parno shows many forms of sprint starting as well as how to accurately set an athlete’s blocks to achieve optimal acceleration, and ultimately, their best speed.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block YouTube videos.

For more information about Bio-Mechanics & Drills: Sprint Starts & Acceleration, click here: Chris Parno’s Sprinting Mechanics & Drills Series – Track & Field — Championship Productions, Inc.