Strength & Conditioning
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| Zak Snell |
Director of Strength & Conditioning
SMSU - RA 129
Phone: (507) 537-7311 or (661) 600-8454 |
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| TBA |
Assistant Director of Strength & Conditioning
SMSU - TBA |
• Student-Athlete Nutrition & Recovery Manual
• Strength and Conditioning Code of Conduct
• Athletic Performance Model
• Mental Health Action Plan
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Strength & Conditioning Mission Statement
The mission of the Southwest Minnesota State University Strength and Conditioning department is to nurture the student-athletes' pursuit of excellence in athletics, academics and throughout their lives with a program dedicated to sport performance enhancement, injury reduction and personal accountability.
Core Values
- Empowerment – build confidence and nurture ownership of training process
- Education – encourage understanding of the "why"
- Passion without emotion – passion is stable, emotion is a rollercoaster
- Accountability – owning failures and learning from them
Program Overview
The priorities of the SMSU Strength & Conditioning program are performance enhancement and injury reduction. This is accomplished by the design and implementation of comprehensive training programs based on the most current research that prepare the student athlete for the demands of competitive athletics. Our program is based on several foundational principles:
- Movement
- Work = Force x Distance. Always train through a full range of motion and never sacrifice technique for weight.
- Establish a foundation of muscular strength
- All movement is created by muscle so stronger muscles impact athletic movements in numerous positive ways. Muscular strength creates a critical foundation for power & speed development, joint stability, movement economy and a favorable hormonal environment in the body. Increased strength levels result in athletes that are faster, more explosive and less susceptible to injury.
- Develop ground based power
- Learn to apply force quickly. No matter how strong you are, unless you can apply that strength quickly, it is worthless in competition.
- Use of ground based multi joint and multi planar exercises
- All sports require athletes to transfer force through the ground to transfer force and produce movements in all planes. Therefore our training focuses on ground based, multi-joint and multi planar exercises including Olympic weightlifting derivatives, core strength movements, single leg movements, plyometrics and sprinting. In addition to developing functional strength, power and speed, these movements will develop balance and postural awareness that is critical in injury reduction.
- Use of periodization
- Consistency is the name of the game. Athletes need to train year round (especially in-season!) to perform at their best and reduce likelihood of injury. Periodization refers to sequencing of training cycles and the manipulation of training frequency, volume, intensity and exercise modification to reduce the likelihood of over-training and to achieve peak performance during the competitive season.
- NOT sport specific in the weight room
- We are not sport specific in the weight room, we are strength and power specific. The application is what makes it specific. Our program focuses on using the best methods and techniques available for general athletic development so our athletes can then go apply their enhanced physical skills and abilities into sport specific skill by practicing at a higher level.
- Nutrition and recovery
- Muscular repair and adaptation occurs during rest and sleep, not during training. Training sessions are only the stimulus for improvement. Stimulus without recovery will lead to overtraining, increase in risk of injury, and decreased performance. Our program focuses on education athletes to improve nutrition and sleep habits to optimize recovery and maximize results.
