University Strength and Conditioning Departments in Focus
The S&C departments within universities provide excellent examples of evidence-based practice, applying scientific principles of S&C to their unique and challenging performance environments.
Through these articles, we will be taking a detailed look at what our partners at different institutions do, sharing good practice and providing a platform for collaboration and improvement.
If you run a university based S&C department, anywhere in the world, please get in touch to share your story.
Bucknell University
In this article we'll be looking into the Strength & Conditioning Department at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The Bucknell Bisons are the athletics team that officially represent Bucknell University in college sports. As part of the NCAA's Division I, the Bison's field 27 varsity sports and are part of the Patriot League, with football competing in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Currently, four full-time Strength Coaches oversee the programming and training of all 700+ student athletes. The university has 2 varsity rostered athlete only weight rooms.
Strength and Conditioning Staff
Jerry Shreck – Head Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Mark Kulbis - Strength and Conditioning Coordinator (Football) Nicole Shattuck - Strength and Conditioning Assistant Matt Baney - Strength and Conditioning Assistant
Strength & Conditioning Department Mission Statement
The mission of Bucknell Strength and Conditioning Program is to provide student athletes with the tools needed to develop athletic performance using a safe and scientific multi-faceted approach to training.
Philosophy
The Strength and Conditioning staff at Bucknell believes in developing the total athlete and designing programs that provide adaptations specific to each sport, while also decreasing the chance of injury.
We use year-round periodization to accommodate performance characteristics such as strength, power/explosiveness, hypertrophy, speed, agility, and endurance. The athletes will do a variety of ground-based, multi-joint exercises, along with Olympic and Power Lifting movements to accomplish these goals. Additionally, each workout is supplemented with injury prevention exercises that focus on joint stabilization, stretching/mobility, and proprioception.
Developing the total athlete requires a holistic approach to training. What an athlete does outside of the weight room is just as important to their progress. The Strength and Conditioning staff works closely with the coaching staff, Sports Medicine, and our Sports Nutritionist to ensure the athlete is part of a cohesive network of trained professionals.
Bucknell Strength and Conditioning utilizes cutting-edge technology through Bridge Athletic to maximize training of their athletes. Bridge Athletics’ powerful building tools allow you to deliver highly individualized workouts to progress athletes and mitigate injury based on real-time data, advanced algorithms, movement tracking, and cross-department communication. Bridge Athletic has become a key technology component of our weight room. As soon as an athlete walks into the weight room, their individualized training plan can be displayed on our monitors. We then track the athletes’ progress in real time, which empowers our training to be more adaptive to the individual athlete's performance needs. Athletes also have the capability to utilize their workout plans off-campus on the Bridge Athletic app. In addition, they have the capability to record their workouts and send them to our staff who can give them insights on their workout.
Berger Varsity Weight Room
This 7000 square foot facility houses Bucknell’s Olympic Sport weight lifting area. The facility is set up to handle a multitude of different programming philosophies. It contains 11 racks/platforms, 11,335 lbs. of plates, 5,051 lbs. of dumbbells, 3,168 lbs. of kettle bells, 2,000 lbs. of D-Balls, slide boards, medicine balls, rings, climbing ropes, select cable and plate loaded machines, bands, chains, foam plyo boxes, and many more accessory training items.
Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium Weight Room
This 2500 square foot facility houses Bucknell’s Football weight lifting area. It contains 8 racks/platforms, 7,630 lbs. of plates, 5,050 lbs. of dumbbells, medicine balls, rings, climbing ropes, select plate loaded machines, bands, chains, plyo boxes, sleds, and many more accessory training items.
Want to share how your department is structured?
Contact us at info@IUSCA.org and share how your department runs on a daily basis
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