The Role of the Modern S&C Coach – With Kevin Cronin, Colorado S&C Ep. 1

Welcome to the Firstbeat Sports Podcast where we talk with coaches and sports scientists to explore the latest in performance monitoring and how it is making a difference in NCAA and pro sports alike. We’re going to connect you with practical advice from the best in the business to help you take your athletes to the next level.

On the line today is Kevin Cronin from Colorado Springs. Kevin is a former NSCA Education Coordinator and has been the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Colorado College since 2012.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Kevin’s thoughts on the role of today’s strength & conditioning coach
• How to improve buy-in amongst coaches and players when working with new technology
• Is it better to lift before or after running?
• Differences between internal and external workloads
• Balancing D1 and D3 athletes
• Kevin’s best insights from Firstbeat Sports’ athlete monitoring platform

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Timestamps:

• How Kevin ended up at CC (1:02)
• Balancing D1 and D3 athletes (4:30)
• Is it strength and conditioning or conditioning and strength? (7:10)
• 39-Million-dollar facility (8:35)
• Why now for investing in sports technology? And why Firstbeat? (9:55)
• Using Firstbeat on a day-to-day basis with the soccer program (11:50)
• Choosing which data points to show coaches (13:06)
• Player buy-in (14:29)
• Did the team feel they’ve benefited from Firstbeat? (15:30)
• How important is to get game data? (16:50)
• Examples of data influenced coaching decisions (18:54)
• How easy is it to manage two systems? (Firstbeat for internal load and PlayerTek for external load)  (21:02)
• Benefits of monitoring both internal and external load (22:32)
• Role of technology in strength and conditioning industry (25:31)
• What other tools Kevin used before Firstbeat (28:48)
• What recovery protocol Kevin uses to deal with away games (29:48)
• Kevin’s advice for getting started with Firstbeat (31:09)

Thanks for listening. Catch up on all previous Firstbeat Sports Podcast episodes here!