http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTFbRKkwWBw

Last day of Spring Football Practice.  We did a 1 on 1 Rope Challenge with the team.

We always want to make everything as competitive as possible and this was no different

Football Season is a few short months away

Life Has No Off-Season!

2012 SCIAC Champs!!!!

The 2012 SCIAC Champs, since Aug 29tgh these guys have been working their backsides off in the weight room.  All year long, it didn’t matter what we were doing these guys gave me their all.  So proud to work with them.  Congrats to the Coaching staff and players.

Life Doesn’t Have an Off Season

We had a great trip to Shreveport, La for University Nationals.  David was able to compete against some of the best in the nation in his weight class.  It was a good learning experience that we will be able to learn from and build on for next year.  In only a few months of training David was able to get this far, he is only going to get better from this.  I am very proud of David and of what he has acomplished in a short time period.  We are already getting ready for next year.

Life Has No Off Season!

Here’s a great article about David Kain one of Coach Durant’s athletes that’s going to University Nationals in Shreveport, La for Olympic Lifting.  We leave tomorrow morning at 6:07am. Wish David Luck!!

Link to the story on David

Good Luck David!

Life Has No Off  Season

Here;s  just a glance at our baseball team training during the 2012 season.  We have been goin hard for 3 weeks and unloaded them that day during our bye week.   We did sled pull to push using the battling ropes, kettlebell circuits, ring rows and ab wheels.  These guys flat out get after it.  They are not like most baseball guys that only lift light or not at all.  Most weeks i got them 3 days during season.  They olympic lift, squat heavy and have a steady diet of pull-ups, RDL’s and Kettlebells.  Great mind set, great kids, great work ethic, this group is fun for a strength coach to work with.

Life Has No Off-Season!

I am very excited to be headed to Shreveport Louisiana for the 2012 National University Weightlifting Championships.  I took one of my football players at the University of La Verne who has really developed  into a really good olympic lifter, well David is in the 77kg (170pds) weight class and he won his weight class and qualified for Collegiate Nationals.  David Totals were 212kg, 98kg Snatch and 212 Clean &Jerk.  David has only been training for this for 2 months and has made huge improvements.  David is a sophmore at ULV from Riverside, Ca.  Here are the vids from the competition.

Here is another article on David from out school newspaper…..

http://laverne.edu/campus-times/2012/03/david-kain-lifts-his-way-to-the-top/

Stay tuned to see how David does in Shreveport……

You can follow all this and more at Coach Durants twitter account-CoachDurant17

and you can follow all of the latest news from Leopard Strength at

http://leopardstrength.tumblr.com/

Life Has No Off-Season

Take the time to read this,  in the strength profession all we do is deal with people each and every day.  To me this sums it up…….Enjoy

At a Touchdown Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant told the following story:
“I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was havin’ trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said “Restaurant.”

“I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I’m the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, “What do you need?” I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today? He says, “You probably won’t like it here, today we’re having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I’ll bet you don’t even know what chitlins are, do you?” I looked him square in the eye and said, “I’m from Arkansas, I’ve probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I’m in the right place.” They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, “You ain’t from around here then?”

“I explain I’m the new football coach up in Tuscaloosa at the University and I’m here to find whatever that boy’s name was and he says, yeah I’ve heard of him, he’s supposed to be pretty good. And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach.  As I’m paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one and he told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay.
The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I’d been there. I was so new that I didn’t have any yet. It really wasn’t that big a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and address on it and told him I’d get him one and shook his hand and left.”

“I met the kid I was lookin’ for later that afternoon and I don’t remember his name, but do remember I didn’t think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.
When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn’t forget it. Back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me. The next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, “Thanks for the best lunch I’ve ever had.”

“Now let’s go a whole buncha years down the road. Now we have black players at Alabama and I’m back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed. Y’all remember, (and I forget the name, but it’s not important to the story), well anyway, he’s got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he’s got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on see some others while I’m down there.”

“Two days later, I’m in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it’s this kid who just turned me down, and he says, “Coach, do you still want me at Alabama?” And I said, “Yes I sure do.” And he says OK, he’ll come. And I say, “Well son, what changed your mind?” And he said, “When my grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and said no, he pitched a fit and told me I wasn’t going nowhere but Alabama, and wasn’t playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y’all met.” Well, I didn’t know his granddad from Adam’s house cat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, “You probably don’t remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama and you sent him a picture that he’s had hung in that place ever since. That picture’s his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him.”

“My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to remember him or to send him that picture, but you kept your word to him and to Grandpa, that’s everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I’m going to.  “I was floored. But I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right. It don’t cost nuthin’ to be nice. It don’t cost nuthin’ to do the right thing most of the time, and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breakin’ your word to someone.”

“When I went back to sign that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he’s still running that place, but it looks a lot better now; and he didn’t have chitlins that day, but he had some ribs that woulda made Dreamland proud and I made sure I posed for a lot of pictures; and don’t think I didn’t leave some new ones for him, too, along with a signed football.”

“I made it clear to all my assistants to keep this story and these lessons in mind when they’re out on the road. If you remember anything else from me, remember this. It really doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable.”

Well Coach, we haven’t forgotten you or the simple lessons you taught not just your players, but everyone who would take the time to listen to you.

What we did on St Valentine’s day is have some fun.  3 stations of 10minutes per station.  Get as many rounds as we could in the 10 minutes.  It is early in our off-season so if was a good time to do some work capacity with the athletes.  They liked the title and despite their faces got into the workout.

Life Has No Off-Season!

Here is a clip of our student athletes throughout the fall semester.  We pride ourselves at La Verne by developing great work capacity.  It doesn’t matter what we are doing, we want to lift heavy and do it with great tempo.  One of our mantra’s is “empty the tank” .  No matter what we do,  do it hard and with passion.  Learn to enjoy the dis-comfort.

Life Has No Off-Season