Derek M. Hansen - January 2025

As you approach the latter years of your career, you begin to review many of the decisions, philosophies and methodologies that you adopted in your younger years, wondering if you made the right choices and how circumstances could have possibly turned out different.  Did I attend the right schools?  Did I train too hard and fall short of my potential?  Did I choose the right career?  Should I have travelled more?  Am I a good parent?  It certainly is odd that you may find yourself with more questions than answers despite all of your accumulated wisdom and experiences.

The same goes for all of my coaching decisions over the past three decades.  Have I followed the correct philosophies and protocols?  Did I get the results I was hoping for?  As such, I am now reviewing a good deal of the training principles that have formed my approach, including the high-low approach to sprint and speed training that I have...

Derek M. Hansen - September 2023

This past summer I have spent more time going back to my roots and watching the sport of Track and Field, also referred to ‘Athletics’ outside of North America.  All of my kids are still competing in the sport and I still have lots of friends coaching at all levels.  It was enjoyable to watch a sport where individual performances and results based on quantifiable times, distances and heights determined success and gratification.  Of course it is always nice to win and take home a medal.  However, achieving a measurable improvement in your discipline can still be rewarding and worth the thousands of hours of time and effort.

When you have had the chance to work with a multitude of sports over the years, it is both easy and embarrassing to try to take credit for the success of a team.  The aggravating reality of the situation is that there are so many factors that go into achieving a championship...

Derek M. Hansen - August-September 2023

Fear-mongering is one of the best ways to get people’s attention these days.  It’s being used effectively by all groups – most notably, politicians, economists and virologists – so why not take full advantage of this phenomenon when advising strength and conditioning coaches, fitness experts and rehabilitation professionals.  Calling something a ‘disorder’ is also a good way to formalize and articulate a problem in society.  So now that I’ve got your attention, let’s get down to business.

I’m going to come out and say it right now.  I believe there are far too many exercises out there, and it is creating a problem for both athletes and the general population.  Injuries are continuing to rise at unacceptable rates in both of these groups, and it is debatable if any  performance improvements we are seeing are the result of savvy...