Director of Athletic Development @accelerationpro | LTAD | NCAA | NFL | CFL | MLB | NWSL/USWNT | DB Manual out now ⬇️⬇️
Chicago's home but OHIO raised
Joined September 2013
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𝐃𝐁 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐖!!
70+ drills with videos
Research and framework on how to develop drills
Progressions and regressions for both corners and safeties
Time to change the way we build DB's!
accelerationsportsperforman-…
Mike Niklos retweeted
FILMROOM IS LIVE.
Split game, links to pbp data
Filter + cut up NFL film by 384 PBP categories (+ your own)
Custom shuttle speeds & frame-by-frame playback
Overlays + custom colums
Record breakdowns w/ audio in-app
Player Finder: every snap, every stat
adaptskill.training/filmroom
Incredible time sharing how we work with our athletes!
Appreciate the time @Voodoo4Power spent coming out!
Enjoy!
@AccelerationPro @CoachNiklos
On the road with Voodoo Power 🏋️♂️
We stopped at Acceleration Sports Performance to watch athletes develop from sprint mechanics and plyometrics to strength training. Great coach and great athletes.
youtu.be/__RJyT13Vjk?is=-Eu7…
Mike Niklos retweeted
@AccelerationPro @CoachNiklos
On the road with Voodoo Power 🏋️♂️
We stopped at Acceleration Sports Performance to watch athletes develop from sprint mechanics and plyometrics to strength training. Great coach and great athletes.
youtu.be/__RJyT13Vjk?is=-Eu7…
Mike Niklos retweeted
First Principles Thinking for Tackling in American Football.
Beware blindly copying other teams. When you copy, you also copy their errors in judgement.
Instead start from first principles thinking, which we'll talk about in this video. Using this mental model we can draw a direct line from making tackles on the field to winning championships, and to distill the complex act of tackling down into 3 simple objectives.
In this video you’ll learn:
- What first principles thinking is and how it can help you
- The first principles of football performance and how it relates to tackling
- The only three ways to stop the rush: halting forward progress, grounding by contact, and forcing out of bounds
- The value of always adopting first principles thinking in football
🏈 Off-season Wrestling for Football programming drops at the start of December. Follow me to be notified when it is released.
📅 I'll be releasing new videos on tackling for football on a regular basis moving forwards. Subscribe and hit the bell so you don’t miss them.
If you found this video useful, share it with a coach or athlete who’d benefit, and tell me in the comments what you’d like covered in future videos.
0:00 Intro and announcements
2:13 What Is First Principles Thinking?
3:03 When you copy, you copy errors in judgement
3:31 First principles beats analysis paralysis
4:03 Let first principles act as the North Star
4:44 Applying first principles to football
5:05 Win championships, nothing else matters
6:04 Score more points than the opposition
6:31 Stop the opposition scoring points
7:52 We make tackles to turn the ball over
8:29 Get proximate, get connected, impose your will
9:08 Drawing the line from tackles to championships
9:57 Wrapping up
#football #tackling #footballcoaching #firstprinciples #wrestlingforfootball
Mike Niklos retweeted
1/5 Your training plan is the starting point. Coaching is the ongoing process.
Here’s a look inside PTC online coaching, using anonymous examples from a real client’s preparation.
Mike Niklos retweeted
Thanks, much appreciated! With laser cam systems we can measure the underlying velocity data very accurately, but that doesn’t change my point. I see FVP primarily descriptive, useful for showing what happened, but much less capable of explaining why or telling us what to train.
Unpopular opinion
When a fight breaks out in 7v7, the football coaches scream this is why 7v7 should be banned
Yet I’ve seen multiple fights break out this week alone in tackle football and…crickets
#EndHandShakeLine
Mike Niklos retweeted
And arguably in-season, what best prepares you is tactical work and psychology.
In high level performers, technique and physical development is pretty damn stable week to week, and yet performances can vary wildly.
Process of elimination dictates that it must be the other areas causing it.
To all the “insert logo/accomplishment” crew, chances are he’s there because he’s a tactical wizard oooor the best friend/brother/personal connection that got him the job
At that level technique is rarely coached, you figure it out in live reps or you get cut. The end
Most drills you see filled time and got no one hurt. It didn’t make anyone more prepared for the real thing
To all the “insert logo/accomplishment” crew, chances are he’s there because he’s a tactical wizard oooor the best friend/brother/personal connection that got him the job
At that level technique is rarely coached, you figure it out in live reps or you get cut. The end
Most drills you see filled time and got no one hurt. It didn’t make anyone more prepared for the real thing
For all the AI haters in S&C (and the copy and paste ChatGPT visual, yes you #FeedTheCats )
Beyond creating digestible visuals that can help tell your story, you can use it to audit your training.
All our data over 10 years here’s what we learned (50,000 entries)
Gen pop (8-18)
-5 pre/post test all > .8 effect size
-Relationship between broad jump/RSI
-10 yard sprint has minimal correlation with other metrics, exposure’s matter.
-Younger athletes improve at a much faster rate than older athletes (20% <10, 10% 14-17)
College/pro (18+)
-Broad jump/squat increases 0-10 yards.
-10-20 yards increases 30-40 yards
Vertical jump increases broad jump
.6m/s squat has higher transfer to 0-10 yards than 1rm
May prove a lot of research already but also confirms it with our approach to training
Well, here we go, thoughts on Rivals:
Businesses tend to start for one of two reasons, first being fill a void. When that void is real, financial success usually follows.
So what if HS coaches put more of a priority on development from the beginning, with transparent short and long term goals? If an athlete has an interest in playing after high school, tag them as such and actively help them along the way.
Coaches love posting the “thanks for coming” graphics and promoting their programs, but how much are we promoting the actual athletes?
As far as rankings, maybe we need to do a better job re-establishing the value of All-State All-Conference All-Area, Honorable Mention, etc. There was a time when those honors really meant something. Rankings also help “skim the fat” for out of town coaches who have limited time and need to quickly identify athletes worth seeing.
Lastly, your P5 guys are probably fine. I understand that promoting them makes your program look better, but those schools spend a lot of money and resources on their own recruiting. The athletes investing in 3rdparty recruiting services are usually the ones simply trying to find an opportunity to play at the next level.
I’m all for crapping on systems that are full of 💩, but at some point you also have to offer a better solution.
“Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” Teddy Roosevelt
Also, the only opinion I truly trust when it comes to the recruiting field is @IamClint_C
You’re up 🤣
Mike Niklos retweeted
🫡
The whole focus on the “fundamentals” is interesting to me and I agree to a point
When learning the position or youth
When the chaos of the position has widen your technical bandwidth you developed survival mode technique
When you can visualize the “tools” you’ll need for a specific opponent
As a primer
But to waste your time/energy on mindless predetermined movement with no context serves no purpose, majority of “fundamentals” falls in this category
The whole focus on the “fundamentals” is interesting to me and I agree to a point
When learning the position or youth
When the chaos of the position has widen your technical bandwidth you developed survival mode technique
When you can visualize the “tools” you’ll need for a specific opponent
As a primer
But to waste your time/energy on mindless predetermined movement with no context serves no purpose, majority of “fundamentals” falls in this category
How I watched film as a DB
Game Day (GD) -6
Just watch, no stopping, understand OC flow
GD -5
Coaches break down received. Identify main tendency’s (down/distance, field positioning, favorite plays, etc)
GD -4
Finalize tendencies, and where/when to be aggressive
GD -3
WR analysis, find tells of WRs, favorite routes, weakness, Facebook dive🤣
GD-2
Finalize tells, routes I want to intercept
GD -1
Just watch, no stopping, understand OC flow
Game Day
On field visualization of routes
I had 16 int’s in my career, if you asked me before the game I knew the routes of ≈ 10 of those I had
“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.” Henry Ford
Off-season we spend the first 4-8 weeks teaching linear speed. After that we apply context
Examples from my Glazier Presentation Track Speed vs. Game Speed including a brilliant drill by @ScottLeech72
The speed discrepancy in high school is massive, so yes speed in all styles is an emphasis
BUT according to the NFL Combine, the difference across ALL positions at 20 yards is ≈ ±0.8 yards.
Being “fast” will work, until it doesn’t
Then learn the game.
Combine the 2, and become an effective player
Th reductionism of training and performance is way out of control
Use a vertical integration model with an emphasis of what creates successful athletes:
HS 📈 physical traits (speed/agility)
College 📈 physical and tactical traits
Pro📈 physical, tactical, and technical traits
To be dominate in HS, be fast; college, be smart; Pro, be effective
Th reductionism of training and performance is way out of control
Use a vertical integration model with an emphasis of what creates successful athletes:
HS 📈 physical traits (speed/agility)
College 📈 physical and tactical traits
Pro📈 physical, tactical, and technical traits
To be dominate in HS, be fast; college, be smart; Pro, be effective