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In a new SimpliFaster article, Cole Hergott works out that he has led more than 11,000 warm-ups at Trinity Western, which at 8 to 10 minutes each comes to roughly 1,833 hours. He runs every one himself, in groups of 15 to 45 athletes aged 17 to 26, and goes through the movements alongside them. No two have been the same. What stays constant is the template, not the session.

He calls it RMAP, the NSCA's RAMP protocol with the mobilize and activate steps flipped. Two to three minutes of dynamic work, jog through carioca and jockey across a basketball court, then arms. Two to three minutes of mobility that flows front to back without doubling back, with activation folded into it. Then the part he says is the best: harder dynamic work, and a game. Tag variations, knockout, whatever the group can play without a five minute explanation. It ends with one drop squat and everyone clapping at once.

The activation work is picked to match what the session is about to ask for, which turns it into the day's screen. Bodyweight squats before a squat day. When an athlete arrives complaining of hip pain, the first thing Hergott asks is how the squats in the warm-up felt, and the answer decides whether the bar gets loaded or that athlete moves to a split squat. "But coaches should design the warm-up to prepare athletes for the session, which makes it a great diagnostic for what is to come and whether they can handle it," he writes.

A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research tested 96 youth baseball hitters, average age 13.9, to find out which gym test actually tracks with bat speed. Swing speed came off an inertial sensor during tee swings. The players then did three medicine ball throws and a countermovement jump on a force plate. The throws explained 65% of the variance in swing speed, with the backward overhead and rotational throws carrying the most weight.

The jump did not predict swing speed at all on its own. It only showed up indirectly, through the throws, which the authors read as lower body power feeding the throw rather than the swing itself. The practical version is that if you are jump-testing hitters and calling it a power profile, the number is telling you about readiness rather than about the swing. A medicine ball is the cheaper test and the closer one.

In a new essay, Nick DiMarco, Elon's assistant athletics director for peak performance, takes up the argument that ran through the field after Florida posted an Olympic sports performance job at $21,000 to $30,000. His case is that the outrage misreads what the position is. Interns, fellows, OSPs and restricted earnings coaches are not operationally necessary. The full-time staff can run the weight room without them, and did before they arrived.

DiMarco walked the path he is describing. He interned at Iowa between his junior and senior years at William Penn and took out loans to cover the summer, then returned to Iowa in a restricted earnings role at $12,000 a year. At Elon he has moved 24 former assistants on to other jobs. Cam Ringstead arrived as an intern, went part-time at $24,000, went full-time, became director of sports performance, and left this year to run his own program at Belmont. "If I had tried to give him more money as an intern, or entry-level assistant, I would not have had the money to keep him around as he climbed the ladder," DiMarco writes.

The Florida Panthers officially announced the hiring of Killian Hamilton as strength and conditioning coach, one of four hockey operations hires that also included a vice president of hockey operations, an amateur scout and a data engineer.

In addition, their AHL affiliate filled the same job. Davis Gadjovich is the new head strength and conditioning coach of the Charlotte Checkers, up from the ECHL's Savannah Ghost Pirates, where he held the role last season as the club reached the Kelly Cup playoffs for the first time. He is the older brother of Panthers forward Jonah Gadjovich.

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Miami Marlins

University of North Georgia

Norfolk State University

Major League Volleyball

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