Head a little bit south of the river on I-471 get over to Carothers Road and turn just a bit past the Skyline Chili restaurant, and head up a long, winding road to the top of the hill and you'll be at Newport Central Catholic High School, the Home of the Thoroughbreds! That's where today's high school feature takes place with the Director of Strength and Conditioning and Physical Education instructor, Vinny Gilardi.
Coach Gilardi has been a part of the Newport Central Catholic community for about a year and a half, as he's putting to good use his Bachelor's Degree and undergraduate studies in Exercise Science to develop strength and conditioning programs for the Thoroughbreds. Prior to NCC, he interned at the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and served as a sports performance coach at an Athletic Strength & Power training center in Cincinnati.
- Coach Gilardi: "At NCC our orientation to strength training starts with a facility tour, in this way, the athletes know where everything is located, then introduction to classmates/coaches. Step three and four of the orientation is to review the Newport Central Catholic Strength and Conditioning program. Then, we set our individualized strength goals. The last step of our orientation process is assigning a mentor. This is an awesome way to get the upper and lower classmates to work together.
- Coach Gilardi: on steps to take in introducing a new exercise to the novice athlete: "The steps we take are always safety first. When training novice athletes we don't add any type of extreme load until the previous training sessions are done properly. We always review the acute variables, and want an exercise backed by science "
- Coach Gilardi on the key factor in a young athlete’s continuation with a strength and conditioning program: "In my opinion, I believe keeping data of the strength gains of each athlete. When a young athlete sees their progress of getting stronger they will more likely continue with the Strength and Conditioning Program. People love seeing results!
- Coach Gilardi on orientating parents, administrators and other coaches about strength and conditioning for athletics: "Communication on social media is very helpful when it comes to reaching out to parents and coaches. We should always promote our program with highlights on social media networks. This keeps the NCC community involved with the strength program"
- Coach Gilardi on a solid method for determining poundages for your young athletes: "Picking the right amount of weight for a young athlete involves trial and error. Our main focus is to add enough load while maintaining proper form. Safety is key and I always say, "we're stronger than we think."
- Coach Gilardi on testing for maximum effort with his high school athletes: "Our program at NCC is really concerned about the safety of our student athletes and we don’t test for maximum effort until 16 weeks into the program. This gives the athletes enough time to figure out how to train safely and properly.
- Coach Gilardi: on some of the motivation techniques that he uses to encourage your athletes to strength training: "We like before & after pictures that way the athletes can see the progress from a different perspective. We all love seeing more weight on the bar, but seeing an actual picture of you getting bigger really motivates you to work harder.
- Coach Gilardi: on implementing plyometric exercises into the NCC strength and conditioning program: We do some type of plyometric exercise everyday. It might be in our dynamic warm-up or weight training. I think athletes should work in all of the different planes and plyometrics are very useful for keeping an athlete healthy.
- Coach Gilardi on how he includes a nutritional education aspect to the overall program at Newport Central Catholic: " I’m lucky enough to be the Physical Education teacher and Director of Strength and Conditioning at NCC so I get plenty of time to go over the importance of nutrition in the weight room and classroom
Coach Gilardi had some of his baseball players in training on the day of my visit. They got a good dose of a total body workout that featured some squat work for the lower portion along with several super sets on the upper body movements.
Pre-workout:
pull-aparts
knee drives
bending side twists
calf raises
plyometric landings
LOWER:
Squats 3x8
Squats 3x8
hamstring curl 3x8
RDLs
Upper:
Incline dumbell press
cable pulldowns 3x8
Push press 3x5
dumbell rows 3x5/5
Band tricep 2x 30 secs