My Personal Experience with Batson's S&C Program

I’m not a fan of anything I’ve read about Batson’s program for our football players, but this “personal experience” has no validity. If you’re not an athlete, you can’t start right in on a weight training regimen designed for BCS conference athletes and expect miracles in only 3 months. Not to sound like a jerk, but a 5’9 140 lb man has no business jumping into an S&C program designed for big time college football players with zero training and supervision. I’ll venture a guess that at that size you hadn’t seen too many weight rooms in your lifetime. Your injuries likely resulted from trying to lift too much, improper form, and overall lack of understanding of the training.

“I have since completed the P90X program, which definitely stresses core work for stability and to me is a much better program (because I’m not a fine tuned athlete) than Batson’s program.”

So you’re saying a program not designed for “fine tuned athletes” is better for top level college football players is better than one that is? It sounds like the P90X program was perfect for your goals and experience level, and congratulations on completing it, but surely you realize that ACC athletes ARE fine tuned athletes, and thus don’t need a program designed to get the average American back into decent shape…

I’ve trained Louie Simmons Westside BB system and variations of it for around 5 years, no significant injuries, and can bench over 300 and squat over 400. Not bad for an accountant.

See? See how my personal experience speaks for how awesome Simmons / Batson’s system is? This holds as much credibility as this “article”. Also the notion that p90x is in any way comparable or superior to ME/DE style strength training is retarded.

I really liked your article on the state of our S&C and the need to move people around. In particular, I agree with you that we have significant deficiencies in our nutrition. Countless people who do a Westside protocol are cut like diamonds yet many of our athletes look just plain soft and overweight. Our lineman don’t carry 300+ pounds of good weight, which falls squarly on nutrition when you are doing a lifting protocol which is almost purely designed to build mass.

But this article is pure bullshit. If I want “insider” info from a 140 pound guy who can’t hack a simple bench/squat/ohp routine yet think he knows shit about training, then I’ll head down to LA Fitness and hang out by the pink weights and the ab wheel.

I actually got a look at this year’s s&c manual and, while it is not what I would personally prescribe, the strength and conditioning portions are fundamentally ok. The majority of the workload is speed and agility based, but the lifting portions cover the fundamentals (cleans, squats, presses, shoulder girdle/neck work, core work).

However, there is one GIANT glaring weakness in the manual and that is the nutrition section. I’m not sure who is writing that portion, but it’s abysmal, especially in regards to it’s recommendations on protein intake. The recommendations in the manual are .8g protein/KILOGRAM of body weight. For a 220 lb athlete, that shakes out to around 80g of protein per day. This is consistent with the ADA’s recommendations for non-training (!) adults and senior citizens (!!). For perspective, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends at least .8g protein/POUND of body weight for hard training athletes, a little more than twice the ADA and Clemson’s recommendations.

Protein deficiency is a very big deal. Not only has a moderate to high protein intake been exhaustively shown in the literature to promote leaner, stronger, better performing bodies, but in a state of low protein intake under high training stresses (such as those experienced by student athletes-who are practicing, drilling, and lifting 20 hours a week), the body begins to break down existing body proteins (such as connective tissues (!!!!)) in order to make up for the lack of amino acid intake. All together, this means more frequent and longer-healing injuries, weaker players, and an inability to maintain body composition and level of performance throughout the rigors of a 3 month season. This is alarming enough that I think that I would personally be satisfied with the installation of a competent sports nutrition professional rather than wholesale regime change on the strength and conditioning staff.

Oh, and LOL@ p90x. You’ve gotta be trollin’.