Tony Holler is a track and field coach and a football and basketball physical trainer. He works at Plainfield North High School. He is also a member of the Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and co-director of the Track Football Consortium with Chris Korfist. Tony Holler is the author of the “Feed the Cats” training method. In this post you’ll read Tony Holler’s thoughts on conditioning in team sports like football.

People forget that they recruit the fastest guys in the nation. So if you have the fastest guys in the nation, you’re going to be fast in the fourth quarter. They think it all goes back to the process. They think it was all because of this old school conditioning and weight room work that they did all those years. 

Speed reserve!

In the fourth quarter, “fast guys” are still the “fast guys”.

It’s so important to realize that the games can be the hardest thing you do. In the fourth quarter can be a time when nobody’s fresh and everybody’s tired, but your fast guys, where you put all that priority towards all that investment (speed, power and elite elasticity and all that stuff) will payoff in the fourth quarter because speed creates endurance.

“There´s nothing you can do during the week that will make your team “fresh” in the fourth quarter.“

Josh Lee

PRACTICE PLAN

It was typical in the past that high school coaches let the first practice of double sessions ruin the afternoon session. If the first practice ruined the afternoon session, what is the next morning like? Imagine if you have 10 days of doubles. Coaches didn’t care if you are limping, bleeding or hating it. They used to use words like “We’re going to tear you down to build you back up”. They’d heard some marine sergeant say that. That’s the way they thought, and players were slower in the first game. 

Never let today ruin tomorrow.

We cannot practice methodically long every day and do extreme things in track meets. So we have to have days that set up our important days. So whether it’s easy Monday to make for a great Tuesday practice, or maybe an easy Tuesday practice to make for an incredible Wednesday practice, you need to start thinking that way.

“Moderate exercise never creates world records.“

Bill Bowerman

Coach Tony Holler has to different plans. In plan A, on Thursday there´s a recovery day. You know that you have to be real careful on Thursday so that you can be fast in the game. Tony Holler kind of see this as like 3 game days. Monday’s game day is set up by taking the weekend off. Let your kids sleep in and be football fans on Saturday, but you take the weekend off and then you’re ready to perform on Monday. Then you go through a fundamental practice. A fundamental practice is a game prep. You’re getting things done but it’s like in high school: You wear practice shoes during practice and then you wear expensive game shoes on game day. If you are in this type of weekly plan what you would do is you’d wear your game shoes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These are days that you might lace up your shoes a little tighter. These are days that you might have a cup of coffee before practice. We want to bring it on Monday and Wednesday. So it’s kind of like you have three game days every week, and then you have pregames when you set up those important practices.

If Monday just doesn´t work for you as a coach that your kids suck on Monday, it’s usually because they’re probably bringing them in on Saturday. They’re not listening to you because if you give them Saturday and Sunday off, they can be good on Monday. But if you really feel like that’s the case, just move your performance days to Tuesday and Thursday. If you move your performance day to Thursday, you got to keep your Thursday extremely short (in and out). Tony Holler is not so sure that you even have to practice on Thursday. Coach Ville Kentucky always took Thursdays off and it was the greatest decision in the world.

Weekly plan (A)

• Monday: Performance
• Tuesday: Fundamental
• Wednesday: Performance
• Thursday: Recovery
• Friday: Game
• Saturday: Sleep
• Sunday: Sleep

Weekly plan (B)

• Monday: Fundamental
• Tuesday: Performance
• Wednesday: Fundamental
• Thursday: Performance (short)
• Friday: Game
• Saturday: Sleep
• Sunday: Sleep

Erik Korem said: “I think every coach should be uncomfortable with how little they do in the first week”. The only correction Tony Holler would make here is he thinks every coach should be uncomfortable with how little they do every week. He loves the word “uncomfortable” meaning that you need to question yourself if: “Are we doing enough?” If you’re doing enough that means you’re not burning the steak. You should have to defend how low the volume is to your assistance all the time.

“I think every coach should be uncomfortable with how little they do the first week.”

Erik Korem

Coach Tony Holler believes you should do less and achieve more. If you do three things instead of twenty, you’ll do those three things better. It’s just the way it is that when we pile on volume we lose quality.

Do less, achieve more.

Instead of 10 reps of a play, ask your team for one perfect rep. You’ll be shocked at how well they do the do the first play when you say one perfect. Instead of 100 routes, ask your receivers to give you 10 great routes. You’ll be shocked. They’ll turn that up by 10 to 20% when they know that they’re only going to be expected to do 10. If you haven’t do 100, they’re going to be 100 in second or third gear, may be faking effort. Not 3 hours of crap, but 2 hours of excellence. Tony Holler is not so sure you should even practice 2 hours.

Find minimum effect dose:

• Not 10 reps of a play, one perfect rep.
• Not 100 routes, 10 great routes.
• Not 3 hours of crap, 2 hours of excellence.

Remember that moderate exercise never leads to high performance. It never does. Going through the motions. But football coaches always yell: “Don’t go through the motions!, Effort!, Effort!”. You know all that kind of crap but yet their kids are worn out. The coaches have burned the steak every day. So they’re going to get high effort but not high performance. So you want to go high performance as much as possible and cut out the stuff that’s making you tired.

• Moderate exercise never leads to high performance.
• Do less, achieve more.
• Intensity is greater in smaller doses.

In NFL games you are watching 75 minutes of players loitering. Your practices in order to create that speed and intensity, that’s going to grow your kids in speed and intensity. You’ve got to allow your practices to be choppy. They won’t look as good. Some dads will be saying: “Oh!, they don’t get after it. There’s no intensity out there.” But what they’re not seeing is that after a break everybody’s going real hard on the next play.

So you got to get rid of your signs. There has always been loitering on the field. If you truly care about performance, “Feed the Cats” is truly revolutionary because remember practice was never meant to be performance-based. Practice was just going to be long and hard work. That’s how Americans get ahead: Hard work! Coach Tony Holler says that performance wins games, not getting tired.

Let the game be the hardest thing you do. By doing that you will be really fast during the week, really fresh and really healthy going into the game. And remember that fast and fresh guys are pretty good in the fourth quarter. When Marcellus Moore won the 400 meters, he never ran more than a 200 in practice. His biggest workout was three times 200. Somehow he beat everybody’s ass in this race. Tony Holler guarantees you that all of the other athletes in this race worked at least four times harder than Marcelus or four times more volume. They probably got toasted in every practice whereas Marcelus just got fast, and stayed fast and healthy. And who wins? The fast guy, not the tough guy, not the guy with the most training. The guy who can perform the best will win the race and that’s the way we need to start thinking about football.

Let the game be the hardest thing you do.

“Sprint as fast as possible, as often as possible, staying as fresh as possible.”

“Rest, recovery, sleep.”

“Tired is the enemy, not the goal.”

“Do less, achieve more.”

“Never let today ruin tomorrow. Never burn the steak.”

“You don´t plant beans and grow corn.”

“Speed grows like a tree.”

“Speed is the tide that lifts all boats.”

“Speed is the best barometer of health.”

Tony Holler

“In speed development, the nervous system only understands quality.”

Boo Schexnayder

“Always choose quality over quantity.
This rule applies to every life situation.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“The quickest way to destroy fast twitch muscle fibers
is to bathe them in lactic acid for prolonged periods of time.”

Kelly Baggett

Bibliographic references:

• Holler T. [Coach Tony Holler]. (2023). Football Coaches: Stop Doing Mindless Conditioning [Video]. Recovered from https://youtu.be/aDB2q5hf3I8?si=0LbrxeHqmSZTD16z
• Holler T. [Coach Tony Holler]. (2024). Lacrosse Training for Speed | Creating Better Athletes in LAX [Video]. Recovered from https://youtu.be/hnxHp2upuBM?si=taIrfF1U7XWZSahS