THE FACILITY
Wofford alumnus and South Carolina Secretary of Commerce Joe Taylor donated $1 million for the renovation of the Curry Building into the Joe E. Taylor Athletic Building. The Taylor Building features a 7,000 square foot weight room and offices for athletic department staff. The building, located next to Gibbs Stadium, began renovations this fall and opened in June 2009. The weight room provides student-athletes in all eighteen sports offered by Wofford to develop physically and competitively in athletics and the world beyond. The facility is equipped with a wide variety of free weights, Olympic platforms and machines which will enable multiple sports to use the facility at the same time.
For Taylor Center photos, click
here.
THE STAFF
Wes Herlocker-Head Strength and Conditioning Coach
Coach Herlocker is entering his fourth year as the head strength and conditioning coach at Wofford. Under his guidance the football and men's basketball programs have enjoyed their two most successful years back-to-back in school history. Football and baseball have won Southern Conference championships since Herlocker’s arrival. Herlocker is a former assistant strength and conditioning coach at UNC Chapel Hill. At UNC he assisted Master Strength Coach Jeff Connors with football and the nationally ranked Final Four bound Lady Tarheels basketball program. Herlocker was a two-year letterman at safety for the East Carolina Pirates.
David Jorgensen-Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach
Coach Jorgensen is in his second year at Wofford. His duties include training the soccer, women’s basketball, baseball, volleyball, golf, and tennis programs. Under his training programs theses teams have seen tremendous gains in strength and speed. Jorgensen is a former offensive lineman at East Carolina.
THE PHILOSOPHY
At Wofford College the two primary goals in strength and conditioning are to increase athletic performance while also preventing sports related injuries. Wofford uses a systematic approach which has been backed by years of scientific research and on the field results at schools such as UNC, East Carolina, Va.Tech, Rutgers, and Wofford. The basis for Wofford’s strength and speed program lies in the roots that have been laid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where head strength coach Wes Herlocker worked as an assistant before coming to Wofford.
Flexibility- Every sport requires a different type of flexibility through movement, however they all require adequate flexibility through a full range of sprinting or jumping motion. Wofford athletes will static stretch after every workout to ensure that their bodies do not tighten up and limit them in a full range of motion for their specific sport. They will also perform a dynamic flexibility routine before the workout and prior to speed development days to ensure that their joints are properly warmed up and ready for heavy and explosive training or performance. Performing a proper dynamic flexibility routine will also increase the athlete’s body awareness and coordination.
Form- If an athlete is going to increase their ability to sprint, backpedal, slide, jump, or any other type of athletic movement, you must first teach the athlete proper mechanics. Wofford athletes will be taught the proper mechanics for acceleration (A series) through every degree of movement. The faster you can move through the first 3 steps in any sport, the better chance you will have to make an effective play. “Top end speed” (B series) mechanics will be taught to athletes which use this type of running during competition. Wofford athletes will also be taught to maintain an athletic position (coming to balance) while engaging in competition. Being “balanced” in any sport is the key to being in position to accelerate efficiently.
Frequency- The faster Wofford’s athletes can move their legs through a full range of motion, the faster they will run. The best way to increase an their stride frequency is to increase their neuromuscular efficiency. Wofford athletes use “neural drills” or “fast leg drills” from both an ankle bound and straight leg bound progression to increase the stride frequency through both an “A” series and “B series leg action. Using the ankle bound fast leg drills will allow the athlete to focus on strictly the movement, while adding the straight leg bound will allow for increased movement and force production. The neural drills also teach the body to contract and relax the right muscles at the right time. If our athlete’s neuromuscular system is not efficient in this contraction/relaxation process, they will appear to run and move “tight”, which will negatively affect their ability to accelerate and run fast. Also running “tight” can increase the athlete’s chance of straining a muscle.
Force Application- The amount of force an athlete can apply to the ground over a short period of time will determine their effectiveness on the playing field. Wofford’s athletes will use advanced stationary (Box Jump and depth jump progressions) and transit (bounding progressions) plyometrics, Olympic lifting (Clean, Snatch, Split Jerk), and strength training exercises (Bench Variations, Squat Variations, and auxiliary variations) to increase force production. If an athlete is going to make substantial increases in force production, they must first have a solid strength base. Without increased strength, their ability to apply more force will be limited even with advanced plyometrics and Olympic lifts. Wofford strength coaches also use a lot of static lifts such as the “pause bench press” and “pause box squat” to increase the athletes rate of force development with no stretch reflex involved. The foundation of the Wofford strength and conditioning department starts with a progressive approach to develop the lower body strength through the use of barbell squat variations (back, Box, front, zercher, bottom 3’s).
Reaction- Our athlete’s ability to react to a stimulus is extremely important to functional speed in a game. Each Wofford athlete will be taught drills to improve their reaction through movement. They will engage in drills during weight room sessions and on the field that will teach them to react to a stimulus that targets their sight and auditory systems. The ability to react to a game speed situation is one of the faster ways to improve game speed and is also an inhibiter that prevents good athletes from being good players.
Through the proper application of the Wofford Strength and Conditioning program the athlete will be physically and mentally prepared to fulfill their athletic potential.
THE WORKOUTS
Information to come ...