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You are here: Home / Archives for Dr. Jeff Messer

by Jay Johnson

A HSRC member’s take on Dr. Jeff Messer’s coaching philosophy

This guest post is by Doug Petrick, a member of HSRC, and the boys and girls track and cross country coach at Upper St. Clair High School, in Pennsylvania.

“One of my primary goals…is to do everything I can to make sure every girl who comes to our program has the opportunity to run at a college or university if she wants to, and run better at the college or university than she did in high school.  Because if she doesn’t continue to improve, I feel like I’ve disserviced her.” Anyone that truly understands distance running, should hold a similar long term view of training high school athletes. Dr. Jeffrey Messer of Desert Vista High School, without a doubt one of the best high school coaches in the US, shared his long term view of training on High School Running Coach.   

As a member of High School Running Coach, I’ve had access to Dr. Messer’s training and philosophy for success. Dr. Messer has had numerous accolades over his tenure at Desert Vista. One example is in 2013 his girls cross country team won the Arizona state championship- quite a feat.  During the Spring of 2014, the Desert Vista girls distance program was ranked as one of only two programs in the “top ten” groups in the 800 meters, 1600 meters, and 3200 meters. During this past cross country season, Desert Vista finished sixth as a team at Nike Cross Nationals. Even more impressive is the fact that Dr. Messer’s runners have continued to flourish as runners beyond the high school setting.  

One of the keys to his success is using the opposite of what most coaches would call periodization. While at Desert Vista High School, Dr. Messer created a culture that stressed the importance of working all energy systems year-round for his runners. Always on the cutting edge of sports science, Dr. Messer has allowed his methods to evolve to get the best out of his runners in an intelligent way. Strength training is another critical element that has led Desert Vista on the path to distance running success. Not only does Dr. Messer know the science that backs up incorporating strength training, but understands how the ordered placement of strength training exercises within a session can be be manipulated to achieve maximum results. During the podcast on the site, he goes into detail about the importance of this timing at the physiological level. Since Dr. Messer states that, “distance runners are in the business of building mitochondria,” he also places a high emphasis on the long run for his athletes. Long runs are structured to allow each runner to progress over the course of the fall season, and continue improving that stimulus year round. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Coaches, Season 1 Tagged With: Doug Petrick, Dr. Jeff Messer

by Jay Johnson

Dr. Jeff Messer – Interview Transcript (free)

Jay Johnson (JJ): We’re really excited to have Dr. Jeff Messer of Desert Vista High School joining us here on High School Running Coach for the month of August 2014. Jeff, thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Jeff Messer (JM): My pleasure, Jay, I appreciate the opportunity, as I always do, to spend some time with you. Always a privilege, and I’m looking forward to this interview.

JJ: Yeah, I am too, we’ve got a lot to cover, you’ve done a great job getting us your training plan, which is extremely detailed, so we will spend quite a bit of time talking about the training. But as we’re asking all the coaches as part of High School Running Coach, let’s first start off with what is, and there might be more than one of these, but can you give me one or two elements of your, either your training philosophy or something specifically you do in your program that you think you would see in all programs? Or I’m sorry, all good successful programs.

JM: Well, I can think of a number of things, Jay, that I suspect or I conjecture are common to the better, and certainly the best programs in the country. Certainly, I hope Desert Vista can be included in that conversation at this point in time, but among those characteristics or qualities, one is structure/discipline. I think it’s important to have structure in training, I think it’s important to have structure in expectations, and I think structure is something that particularly high achieving young student-athletes seek. And I think in general they will embrace structure, and they’ll rise to the expectations of accompanying structure. So I think structure in a program, and it can be as simple as structure in the training plan, I think that’s an important component. Maybe a more important component, and it may be even the most important component, I don’t have evidence to support that statement, but maybe the most important component is simply to convince young student-athletes about their self-worth, and how great they can be, and how limitless their achievements can be. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Free Content, Interviews Tagged With: Desert Vista cross country, Dr. Jeff Messer, Dr. Jeff Messer transcript

by Jay Johnson

Dr. Jeff Messer – Training Summary

Dr. Jeff Messer

Having coached 8 of the last 9 state championship teams, Coach Jeff Messer is viewed as Arizona’s most successful high school running coach in the 21st Century. As someone with a PhD in Exercise Physiology, Coach Messer takes an even more scientific approach than most to his training development.

When you hear Coach Messer talk you will hear him talk about two things over and over again. The first is the process. Some coaches call this the culture, for Messer it’s about the process. The process is what the athlete needs to do daily to get better. This includes rest/sleep, proper nutrition and hydration and the prescribed workout for the day.  The second is aerobic development. Almost all of Messer’s runs are aerobic in nature with very little anaerobic work.

Some key points about Coach Messer and his program [Read more…]

Filed Under: Coaches, Free Training Tagged With: Desert Vista, Dr. Jeff Messer, Xavier College Prep

by Jay Johnson

Dr. Jeff Messer Q&A Highlights

Here are a few of the questions Dr. Messer was asked in the Q&A.

The first is from Jesse Coy.

“Does the frequency of “strides” in your program replace the need for sessions specifically devoted to running economy, like 200’s, etc. ?”

Very fair question … and I cannot provide an evidence-based response. If you conjecture that our relatively significant, year-round commitment to 100-meter strides might indeed replace the need for 150’s, 200’s, etc., I would not disagree with that conjecture.

Our philosophy is that our daily or near-daily commitment to strides provides a consistent, foundational “neuromuscular” component to our training … as we view training as an integrated neuromuscular, cardiovascular stressor … and we seek to ensure that there is always a race-specific or near-race-specific neuromuscular component to our training..

Accordingly, we do not diminish the quantity of 150’s, 200’s, etc. that we undertake … rather, we seek a range of race-specific and near-race-specific neuromuscular stimuli (i.e. 100’s, 150’c, 200’s, etc.) that collectively enhance preparation for a 5-kilometer race.

The next two questions come from Mike Horan.

“How do you maximize your assistant coaches?  As head coach, what are things you do to communicate, teach, and encourage the coaches?

One of my key philosophical beliefs / commitments is to the concept of empowerment … each of our assistant coaches has responsibility for and ownership of a specific group of student-athletes … and while I construct the overall training plan for our team … each coach has complete latitude to make any and all appropriate adjustments, refinements, etc. at their discretion … in order to not only provide the aforementioned empowerment but also promote a true individualization of the training experience … coaches are similarly empowered to manage periodic grade checks, to make decisions regarding participation / non-participation in team activities, etc. … in sum, I believe wholeheartedly that it is incredibly important to fully empower a coaching staff in order to positively motivate that staff to fully commit to and invest in student-athlete success.

Mike’s next question follows.

“You mentioned that your team is pretty large.  Can you give some ideas/tools that you use to manage, motivate and train the large group?”

I refer to my previous response sir … our small group model is critical to our philosophy and corresponding approach … the model collectively empowers both student-athletes and coaches … in addition to evolving the goal of true individualization. I am increasingly oriented toward having my assistant coaches manage all the groups … thus allowing me the flexibility to observe / assess / motivate ALL our student-athletes during our higher-quality training sessions.

The final question is from one of for our featured coaches, Adam Kedge.

“Jeff, outline the progression in steps you’d have a new young team member follow before being prepared for your advanced program.”

Always such a pleasure and privilege to reconnect and interact with you sir. I hope that you and your student-athletes have enjoyed an outstanding summer … and that you are enjoying an equally engaging beginning to the current academic year.

Adam … I do not employ a systematic or codified approach to progressing student-athletes to the most advanced version of our program. We have the good fortune (not literally) of a large group of exceptionally dedicated coaches who commit extensive effort to mentoring / guiding our younger runners … we typically employ a principle of conservatism … a new runner might run as little as 10 … perhaps 15 … minutes during the first several weeks of an off-season training progression. We attempt to evaluate each runner individually … as some young runners demonstrate both the emotional maturity and musculoskeletal integrity to advance relatively rapidly … particularly incoming freshmen who have an extensive, structured background consequent to a prior club and / or middle school running experience … moreover, we do not adhere to specific volume objectives for our younger runners … i.e. run, for example, 30-miles per week by the end of a freshman cross-country season … or freshman academic year … rather, we attempt to carefully observe how a student-athlete responds to a specific dose of training … and if a response is robust … i.e. no evidence of injury and / or chronic fatigue … we will slowly increment volume … we increment volume and plan volume based on minutes … thus we would not increment from 4-miles to 5-miles … i.e. a 25% increase … rather, we might increase from 34-minutes (4-miles) to 36- or 37-minutes, for instance, … i.e. less than a 10% increment … that relatively more conservative approach seems to serve us well.

To view all of Dr. Messer’s Q&A, as well as get all of the training from our coaches, become a member.  Membership is just $8.09 a month.  Click Here to become a member.

Filed Under: Coaches, Q&A, Uncategorized Tagged With: Desert Vista, Dr. Jeff Messer, Strides, Young runners

by Jay Johnson

Dr. Jeff Messer – Q&A

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Filed Under: Coaches, Q&A Tagged With: Aerobic Power, Dr. Jeff Messer, High School Running Coach

by Jay Johnson

Dr. Jeff Messer Interview Excerpts

This interview/podcast contains the highlights of Dr. Messer’s full interview.  He discusses Aerobic Power and various ways he tries to constantly improve the aerobic metabolism.  He also discusses why he uses minutes and not miles to structure his training plans.

This is a great interview in itself.  If you would like to listen to the full interview, become a member for $8.09 a month by clicking here.

You can also listen to this interview via iTunes (or Soundcloud).  If you use iTunes and you like the interview, please leave a review.  Thanks!

Filed Under: Coaches, Interviews, Podcasts Tagged With: Cross Country, Dr. Jeff Messer, High School Running Coach, Minutes VS. Miles

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