Jim Jarvis Helps Two Carleton Athletes Win NCAA Titles

Jim Jarvis and Kao Sutton during indoor season.

Jim Jarvis is on the leading edge of a trend to integrate Strength and Conditioning programs into sports. Jarvis' bio is HERE.  Below he talks about working with NCAA champs Amelia Campbell and Tao Sutton at Carleton.

Down the Backstretch:  I don’t know if it’s a trend or just something athletes haven’t talked about or had available to them in the past, but this year at least four Minnesota athletes have worked with strength and conditioning coaches and gave them at least partial credit for their success.  

I gather from talking with Amelia Campbell that you work primarily with the football team, but also help out athletes in other sports.  How did you end up at Carleton and, what do you do to help the athletes be more successful?

Jim Jarvis: I actually came to Carleton because of the amount of teams and variety that I would get to work with. I currently work with every Varsity sport at Carleton.  It may seem that I work with football the most, but that is because they are the largest team on campus and also work with me the most. 

I ended up Carleton after spending two years at the University of Minnesota, Morris as their Head Strength and conditioning Coach and developing their first strength and conditioning program.  After those two years I went to Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD.  I spent two years out there as a graduate assistant coach in order to obtain my master's degree to further my career.  

I then found out about the opening at Carleton College and started my position in the middle of the summer.  One of the most important aspects of having a head strength and conditioning coach is that even though all of the workouts are voluntary having someone in the weight room gives a certain amount of accountability.  

Giving that accountability gives them a reason to make sure to get into the weight room, which will create consistency, which is the most important aspect within strength and conditioning.  Within my position I develop year-round lifting programs as well as year conditioning, speed, and agility programs depending on the time of year.

DtB:  When most people see “strength and conditioning” they think of the weight room, lifting equipment, and barbells.  But the field is a bit broader than that I suspect.  When a track athlete comes to you for help, do you do tests, evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses?  How do you go about developing a program for them?

JJ: The first thing is to determine their experience level with lifting and then developing an initial program with them from there.  After the initial period of getting them into the lifting program, the program starts to get more specific for that athlete and their events.  When I do test the athletes I test them in performance tests to make sure their speed, lower body power, and upper body power.  These tests will transfer to their events more than any other.

DtB:  One of the abilities of great athletes is that they are able to absorb information on what they need to do to improve and apply them to their training.  Has this been true for Amelia and Kao?  Any specific examples of things that was beneficial to them?

JJ:  Yes and no, one of the main things was that they each needed to build a base of lower body power.  The analogy that I always make is that they had the Ferrari frame, I just helped them get the engine in.  Meaning that they had the basic strength levels and they just needed some more power.

DtB:  Amelia said that she “gave back” a bit by helping teach the football players how to run better, be more efficient.  Do you find this sort of situation often, where somebody comes to the program for things that can benefit them, but also gives back by teaching others about things they do very well?

JJ:  Not really, Amelia has a very special gift in that she understands speed development,  and I asked her if she would want to help me out and do some speed development with the football team, she was extremely excited to help out with that.  There have been other times where some other athletes have stuck around to help out here and there, but none as much as Amelia.  My intern/student assistant is a football player who is thinking about going into the strength and conditioning field.  He has helped out a lot with that.

DtB:  The common perception of strength and conditioning is that it primarily involves weight lifting or increasing one’s strength, but in reality it is broader than that, I would guess.  That you teach efficiency of movement as well as ways to get stronger, as the primary goal is to make what the top athletes do easier.  Is that an accurate assessment?

JJ:  The most important part of strength and conditioning is injury prevention.  After that then we start to worry about performance and increasing strength.  More importantly than strength is power.  Strength is more about how much weight or force a person can produce.  Power is more about how fast a person can produce force, this is much more important in athletics as there are not many times an athlete can move slow and produce maximal force over a long period of time (think Squat, Deadlift, Bench).  However, an athlete that can produce maximal force over a short period of time would be able to produce maximal power (clean, jerk, snatch, plyometrics) (long jump, high jump, shot, discus).

DtB:  Often athletes who are injury prone or who have lost training time to injuries try out strength and conditioning programs to help them build up a “buffer” that hopefully will help them avoid major injuries.  Do you encounter a lot of that—athletes coming to you primarily for injury prevention, and how do you deal with it?

JJ:  For every athlete the most important thing is injury prevention, there are multiple ways to deal with it depending on the injury, the severity of injury, and the length of time since the injury.

DtB:  The “gym culture” used to primarily male and usually bodybuilders or athletes who were in sports or events that placed a premium on size and strength.  Now many of the fitness gyms or workout emporiums are sought out by women who aren’t looking for performance boost as much as weight control and/or general overall fitness.  That’s a different clientele that you have so you may not want to dive into this area, but any thoughts on what “recreational athletes” or non-athletes should look for in a fitness program?

JJ: One of the most important aspects to look into is to make sure that it isn't a "fad".  There are a lot of "fitness fads" right now and a lot of them promise that they will help lose extreme amounts of weight, produce massive amounts of muscle growth, or get a very defined body.  Most of the time it is an extreme workout regiment that is either very short in time or very long.  The most important thing is to talk to a legitimate trainer and make sure you have a good plan and that you know what you are doing. 

DtB: Are there any differences, things you have to approach differently for female athletes as opposed to males?  Or do all athletes share a common approach to their training? 

There are really only two  differences.  The first is you can't really scream and yell at females (I rarely yell at male athletes) because they don't respond to that type of training.  The 2nd is that I don't design much hypertrophy blocks in a females year round program.  As females do not produce much testosterone they are not able to build as much muscle as a male, so there is not as much of a reason to try to get them to build muscle.  The other thing about the hypertrophy blocks is there aren't as many high contact sports in women's athletics so there is not as much of a reason to try to build the female athletes any bigger.

DtB:  Are there any memories from the past year that will stick out for Amelia and Kao and their development during the past year?  Things they can work on that will help them continue to improve?

Kao Sutton celebrates with Jeff Jarvis

JJ: The most memorable moments was when Kao hex bar deadlifted 385 and split jerked 175, and when Amelia snatched 115 and when she box jumped 42".  Kao will now start into what should be a very successful competitive power lifting career. She needs to improve her back squat as well as her bench press, but right now she would rank fairly high in the US with her power lifting numbers (deadlift, bench, squat).  

The most important aspect for Amelia will be injury prevention and keep developing lower body power.  I expect at least a 45" box jump from her next year, and I would expect to see her hit a 50" box jump her senior year as well as snatching her body weight.