Coach Ethan Reeve Interview Ethan Reeve is in his fifth season at Wake Forest, coming from Ohio University in February 2001 to guide the Demon Deacon strength and conditioning program for all sports. Reeve, who spent six seasons with the Bobcat program, was a twotime NCAA All-American and four-time Southeastern Conference Champion wrestler at the University of Tennessee. He began his coaching career at his alma mater, serving as assistant wrestling/strength coach for the sport of wrestling for two seasons. He also assisted as wrestling coach at Oklahoma State, Ohio, and Clemson before serving as Head Wrestling Coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. At Chattanooga his teams won five Southern Conference Championships in six years from 1984-1990. Reeve is certified through three organizations: USA Weightlifting, Russian Kettlebell Challenge and the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association. He was at the McCallie School in Chattanooga from 1990-1995 as the Director of Strength and Conditioning while also strength coaching the Women's US Rowing Team from 1993-1995. The Women's US Rowing Team won four Gold medals and one Silver medal in the 1995 World Championships out of a possible six medals. In 1995 Reeve then returned back to Ohio, his native state, to become Ohio University's first Director of Strength and Conditioning for six seasons. He also

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designed and oversaw the opening of the Carin Strength and Conditioning Center at Ohio University in November 1999. Coach Reeve and his wife Susan have three children and have been married for nineteen years.

The Interview 1. Coach Reeve, talk to use a little bit about some of your unorthodox training methods you use with your Football players at Wake Forest University?

Coach Reeve: We just finished Game Day with our football players in the strength room. This is where we have our players do 50 sets of power cleans in 50 mins. with a new set start every 60 secs. Here are the standards we would like to happen: a. O-line & D-line 242 lbs./50x2 or 286+/50x1 b. LB-TE-FB-220 lbs./50x2 or 264/50x1 c. All Others-198 lbs./50x2 or 242 lbs./50x1

2. Can you give us a little background on your upbringing and how you used to train as a kid and how this training influenced your current philosophy? Coach Reeve: I grew up living in Deming, New Mexico from my 2nd grade through the middle of my sophomore year. A family in our neighborhood ran a cotton farm. We would “chop cotton” for 8-12 hours each day during the summer, making $.75 per hour. “Chopping cotton” is walking down the rows of cotton with a hoe and hoeing the weeds out between the cotton. During harvesting time we would go from farm to farm and get hired out to load bales of hay into the barns.

We also did a lot of cleaning out pig stalls and we dug a lot of post holes for building fences. Anytime I could do hard, manual labor like breaking up concrete, slopping hogs, chopping wood or construction work I would offer up my services. I also shined

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shoes and sold newspapers on the street corner to make money. After my family moved back to Ohio I discovered a lot of the better athletes were from families where manual labor was the father’s occupation. Maybe these guys weren’t the best lifters in the weight room but they were better athletes in sport competition.

You develop a “man’s strength” when you do manual labor. It is from this basic premise and from my experiences as a wrestler and wrestling coach where I developed the philosophy we use here at Wake Forest University. During my summers while in college I lived with the Billy Martin Sr. family of Granby Wrestling School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I always arrived late for harvesting the strawberries but Coach Martin would have us do plenty of other farm work in between the summer wrestling camp sessions. It was here where I developed a great appreciation for pushing trucks which led to pushing wooden sleds.

3. Coach Reeve, what are the main lifts that you incorporate into your overall program with your athletes?

Coach Reeve: An athlete, much like a manual laborer, uses his whole body together as “one”. He knows when t turn certain muscles on and others off! He will naturally use as many muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons in a sport skill or a lift. The great athletes do the same thing. Great athletes do something lesser athletes don’t do: “they make the skill look easy and effortless”. This is why we believe strongly in portions of the Olympic lifts, power lifts, body weight calisthenics, kettle-bells, dumbbells and wooden sleds for pushing when training our athletes. We also strongly believe in full range of motion in all lifts. Partial lifts are not part of our team workouts.

4. Can you take us back a bit to your days in competitive wrestling and describe your training methods from back then? Coach Reeve: From my 8th grade year until my senior year I would perform 500 pushups each and every day! I would also do some Hindu pushups and Hindu squats Copyright 2005 – 2006 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com

along with a lot of abdominal and neck work. When I arrived at the University of Tennessee I continued on this path of training and won two Southeastern Conference wrestling gold medals at 150 and 158 lbs. weight class. However, there was something missing in my strength training that was needed for me to become an AllAmerican like I wanted to be. It was after my sophomore I discovered Power Cleans. We consider the Power Clean to be the best total body power or explosive lift for athletes. This is when I started doing Power Cleans 165 lbs./ 10x10 supersetted with Chins (overhand and underhand) 10x10. I would do the 100 chins and 100 Power Cleans all in less than twenty minutes. I would perform this workout seven days per week for the next two years. I remember doing this workout prior to weigh-ins my junior year at the Southeastern Conference Wrestling Championships. That afternoon I won in the 158 lbs. finals 18-3. That year and the next I was an NCAA AllAmerican placing 5th and 3rd. Performing Power Cleans helped me achieve that success. Power Cleans are much like all the manual labor I described, especially bailing hay. But the beauty of the barbell is the manipulation of the weight lifted and you can do this all year long not just harvesting time.

5. What do you and your assistant Strength Coaches do to educate yourselves on training your athletes optimally? Any recommendations to our readers who train athletes (where to go for information, what to read, etc.)?

Coach Reeve: We believe this area to be one of the strong points within our strength training philosophy. When we were training in those earlier years of the mid 60’s throughout the late 70’s we did not have strength coaches. We were our own strength coaches. We really experimented on ourselves read magazines and books. I trained in the free weight room at the University of Tennessee where only the wrestlers, throwers and sprinters on the track team worked out. I would watch the throwers lift and try and emulate their power clean technique. They were much better at technique than I was. Many times I would bring wrestling teammates in to train with me.

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My advice is to get on the different websites, visit different strength coaches at the high school and college levels, the Olympic training Center, and anywhere you might find the best strength coaches in this country! Keep an open mind to all knowledge!

6. How & why do you incorporate Russian kettlebells into the training of your athletes. Are these used year round or only during a certain time of the season?

Coach Reeve: We use barbells, dumbbells, kettelbells, chin bars, dips bars, wrestling mats, medicine balls, and 300 lbs. wooden sleds. We incorporate lifts from powerlifting: bench, dead lift and back squat. We use portions of Olympic lifting: hang clean, power clean, power clean-n-jerk, front squat, push press, standing press, and hang snatch. Bodyweight calisthenics are used every day with our athletes: chins, dips, pushups, free standing squats, step ups and lunges. We like dumbbell work: one arm bench, one arm rows, two arm incline and bench. As far as kettlebells go we use: swings, one arm snatch, clean-n-press, one arm press. Kettlebells, due to its unique design, is best for one arm training like snatch, one arm clean-n-press, and one arm swings. We like using one arm work with the kettlebells because it develops the “core” body in a unique way over two dumbbell work or two kettlebell work. Your “core” must stabilize on the opposite side (obliques) in order to remain upright position. Imagine carrying two heavy dumbbells as in a farmer’s walk. This is a great exercise. However, the resistance is forced downwards only and stabilization in the “core” is not of a primary importance. If you were to carry only weight in the one hand the resistance is forced downwards but in order to remain upright your obliques on the opposite side must really fire. This goes for any one arm or one legged exercise. You develop the “core” differently!

7. I have seen, read and heard of some D 1 universities using water filled kegs, sandbags, sleds and other forms of strongman training. Do you see yourself adding implements such as tractor tires for flipping or water filled kegs? Please explain why or why not.

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Coach Reeve: We used sandbags, sledge hammers on tires, and flipping tires while we were at Ohio University! Great stuff! I highly recommend all of these! However, this is not the major emphasis but more supplementary. They are very functional and great when the weather is good. They are also great to break up the monotony of training only in strength rooms! Does it work? Absolutely!

8. Coach Reeve, once again, thank you for another great interview and taking time away from your hectic schedule. Are there any closing comments you would like to leave our readers with? Once again, thanks for your great contribution my friend ☺

Coach Reeve: I hope this helps all of your readers! Good luck Zach! You have a great website and are doing a super job with the athletes you train!

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