Distance training: Q&A with FSU football strength coach Josh Storms

With Florida State's campus shut down and the Seminoles' football players now back home with their families, strength coach Josh Storms and his staff have had to get much more creative than usual this month.

Whether it be helping the Seminoles stay in shape or assisting those who want to add muscle or drop pounds, Storms and his staff have done everything from creating body-weight workout plans to inspiring the players with backyard workout videos on social media.

On Wednesday afternoon, Storms spoke with Warchant.com about the challenges his staff is facing, the attitudes of the Seminoles' players so far, and where things might be headed moving forward.

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Q: It goes without saying that you've never experienced anything like this before. Take us back to when the realization first hit that you and your staff were going to be apart from the guys for a long period of time and how you began to work through that.

A: I think that week leading up to spring break, as we watched the news across the country and talked to people at other schools -- you know, some places were earlier on in what they were doing, some were already on spring break and some were getting their spring break extended -- I think we knew that there was going to be major, major adversity coming down the pike. It was just a matter of how much, and for how long.

At that point, we were trying to make contingency plans for everything. But the situation wasn't just changing daily at that point, it was changing hourly. So we had to kind of wait until the decision (to shut down campus) was finally made, and then from there, we kind of fell back on some of the plans we had talked about. We started reaching out to our guys and communicating with them.

You know, one of the things that's kind of helped us from a training standpoint was that we cut those guys loose on the Friday morning before spring break. So, they already had a plan for that week, and I intended that to be a pretty down training week, giving them some time to recover. And over the course of those days, it gave us some time to game plan for what we were going to do coming out of spring break.

So last Sunday, we reached out to every one of our guys and kind of found out what they had access to as far as training goes. For the guys who still had access to gyms, we sent them an updated plan. And then for the guys who didn't have access to anything, we sent them some plans that they could do with body weight or just household items that they could find. And then we'll just kind of keep updating that each week, week by week as we work through this deal.

Q: As spring practice started, it sounded like you and Coach Norvell were pretty pleased about the progress the team had made in the first two or three months in your program.

A: Yeah, I was extremely happy with the progress we made. And that just speaks to the motivation and the attitude of our guys, and their desire to get better. So the progress we made in the wintertime was really, really good. And you hope that because guys saw the progress being made -- saw their bodies change in the mirrors and saw the weight they were pushing on the bars change -- you hope that provides a pretty heavy dose of motivation to not let that ball drop and continue to build on that new foundations that those guys are standing on.

Q: I'm sure you have plenty of friends and colleagues in the business. Is this something where guys are reaching out to each other with ideas for how to handle these challenges?

A: We've talked to a lot of other schools. I think initially, a lot of the conversations were around, you know, "Are you shut down? What are you doing? What are you still able to do?" No one wanted to hear that you're shutting down and School B is still going full tilt. Well, we fond out very quickly that wasn't the case -- that everybody was getting shut down pretty quickly. In some places, it was happening much, much earlier and more extreme than others.

After that, the conversations kind of turned to, "What are you doing with your guys?" Because at the end of the day, right now, everything our guys are doing right now is completely voluntary. It has to be because they choose to do it. So we would mostly talk about how they're communicating with their guys and what they've been able to provide for them. And then we tried to figure out what made the most sense for us, because every situation is totally different.

For us, the one thing we feel we are experts at is we're experts at our guys. And so we've been communicating with them and just trying to fine-tune and personalize their plans as much as we can, as we make our way through this.

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Q: Do some of the players have access to benches and real weights?

A: Yeah, as of Sunday, the vast majority of our guys still had access to weights and they could lift. Now, over the course of the week, I've had phone calls from a couple of guys, "Hey Coach, I just got a call from my gym. They're shutting down." So I've got to send those guys a body-weight plan and talk them through that a little bit. But right now, you’ll see guys with their posts on social media -- some of those guys are lucky enough where Dad at home has a garage gym. Or they found a guy down the street who has got a gym in his shed, or whatever it may be. And so those guys have done a good job of being resourceful and trying to find places to get good work done.

And they've also done a great job of, if they've found a great place to train, they've reached out to other guys in their area and let them know and are collaborating with that.

Q: Obviously, the nutrition staff plays a huge role in what you guys are able to do from a training perspective. Is there anything you guys can do to help the players from a nutritional standpoint, knowing that not every player has the same amount of resources to buy healthy foods, etc.?

A: No question. Right now, we're in the middle of a big transition. You've been around the facility enough that you've seen the resources the guys have at their fingertips when they're here on campus. Right now, you have a lot of guys living back home with their families, and every situation kind of varies across the spectrum. So right now, the biggest thing we're trying to do is work with Marisa [Faibish, FSU's nutritionist] in trying to get as much education and as much information in the hands of our guys as possible. Whether that be a simple and affordable grocery list, or simple ways to prepare food if a guy isn't used to cooking for himself. And then we're in the process of figuring out what other options we can provide for them.

Q: You and your staff have gained a lot of fans with your backyard workout videos on social media. It seems like you're trying to motivate the players and also educate them about ways to work out without equipment. What's the thought process there?

A: It's a little bit of all those things. I mean, a situation like this is obviously far from optimal, and nobody would ever chose to be in this situation. But nonetheless, this is where we find ourselves. So, on one hand, you've got to make the best of it. And then part of it is getting information out. You know, it's not those guys' jobs to be creative and discover ways to train. That's our job. So if we can post a video and give them some ideas, that's awesome.

And one of the other reasons is it's just eliminating excuses. If you're sitting at home like, "Oh, I don't have a gym to work out in, I can't do anything." And then you open Twitter and you see Coach [Nick] Dowdy in his backyard with a broomstick and cinder blocks, it's pretty hard to look in the mirror and tell yourself you can't get that done. So it's motivation, it's providing options and it's eliminating excuses.

Q: Through all of this, are you getting a feel for which players are really committed to getting better? Like are certain players calling and asking for more information instead of worrying about what they can't do?

A: Absolutely. I mean, in the last 10 days I've spent more time on my phone than I probably have in the previous three months. And it's awesome. I wouldn't trade it for anything. This guy's like, "Hey, I have this, I don't have this. What more can I do?" Or you know, we gave them a pretty basic plan. So I'll have guys reach out like, "Hey, I really liked the position-specific conditioning we did this winter. Can you send me that so I can do that?" And it's been really good to see.

Because at the end of the day, all those guys, if you ask them if they want to be great and if they want to be paid someday to play this game, every hand goes up. OK, well this is an awesome, awesome situation to really find out who really wants what they say they want. And who's going to hold themselves accountable. Just because the situation changed, guys' dreams shouldn't change. So we'll find out now who has the discipline to hold themselves accountable and still go chase that down.

Q: Hopefully, this crisis won't last too much longer. But the longer it does, it reminds of me what things were like when I first started covering college football. When players would go home for the summer, and then when everybody came back for preseason camp, you found out who really worked hard on their own. Do you think it might be similar to that?

A: It's very similar to that. When I first got in this business 20 years ago, depending on where you were at, a lot of guys still went home in the summertime. When I was a player, I went home in the summertime. The only thing that makes this a little easier to manage is that technology is so different now. Our ways we can communicate with those guys are so much better.

I can send those guys workout cards straight to their phones. Back in the day, you'd send a guy home with a paper manual. And if that got lost, the guy's complete training plan was gone. No kid was going to call you and tell you they lost it. Whereas now, I send information straight to them. And if a guy calls me at night, "My gym's closed now. I don't have a place to train." Right there on the spot, I can send him a body-weight training program right then and there.

To be honest, for me, it's great. Today I FaceTimed a bunch of my guys. It's awesome just to see guys' faces and see them smile and see where they're at. That helps a lot, it really does.

Q: Lastly, I saw you are part of a fundraiser featuring a number of strength coaches across the country, with the funds going to help the Covid-19 Response Fund. How did you get involved in that?

A: Some of the guys I know in this business kind of put that together. One, because they were looking for something constructive to do. Then they wanted to find a way to raise money for a good cause. It's a great opportunity to share information and spend some time wisely, while also benefiting people who have been affected by this deal. So it's pretty awesome.

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