Get To Know Lyonel Anderson, IU Strength Coach
6/12/2015 9:46:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Learn what his strength training philosophies are as well as his career path that led him to Indiana
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Indiana Men's Basketball team announced the hiring of Lyonel Anderson as the team's strength and conditioning coach earlier this week. After a couple days on the job, we talked with Anderson to find out what his philosophies are as well as what his career path was that lead him to Indiana.
Talk a little bit about coming to Indiana basketball and what it means to you and how it's gone the first four days.
"Coming to Indiana is huge for me. It's a great opportunity to work with young, elite athletes and young, elite men and work with a big time coach in Tom Crean. I'm excited about the opportunity. For me, I've said this before, but this is like my Super Bowl. Yogi wants to go to the NBA, I want to coach the Hoosiers. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about being able to have my own show and let my vision come out in the guys and my attitude because I feel like the strength coach is a direct reflection of the guys when they get out on the court. I feel like I'm an important part of their process, mentally and physically. They will come out of this summer with the edge I have every day. I think we'll win a lot more games that way.
"This first week has been a great week. It's been different for them as far as like the type of exercises and training and agility and intensity that I'm bringing to the table, but these guys, like elite athletes do, they've responded well and they've been coming every day giving me the effort that I needed and giving me the determination that I need and want and will require."
What is your vision?
"My vision is this--simply put--be hard as nails, to win a bunch of games and to go back to Houston and I'm not talking about working for the Cougars. Because Hoosier nation needs that, and wants that. I understand that, and that's the only job I have to do is those three things. If I do those three things, then it's a success. And everybody else's dreams will be accomplished. You know, Yogi's, Troy's, James', Coach Crean's, myself, whoever's. If you win, you get there. So that's my vision. That's my plan. By any means necessary as well. By any means."
It seems like coach Crean really gave (Je'Ney Jackson) a lot of ownership in this program. Have you noticed that?
"No question. Coach Jackson is a great guy, a mentor of mine. He's a great friend of mine. He coached me at the University of Kansas. A lot of people don't know that, but he did. He taught me a lot even then and he teaches me now, but at the same time, working for a boss like coach Crean, he allowed him to do his thing. You know what I mean? Be himself.
"That's why I'm excited because I'm my own man. Coach Crean allows me to do that. He allows me to let my personality spill out on the guys and spill out on whoever is around me. I look forward to that. Strength and conditioning is not just weights. It's not just trying to use these guys as guinea pigs. We don't do that. The things that I do, the things that coach Jackson has done in the past, it starts from the top to the bottom. So the first thing that I'm working on, the first muscle I'm working, is that brain right between my eyes. If I get that, everything else will fall into place."
What has been different in workouts?
"For starters, just the intensity of it all. I'm a pretty intense guy. I'm right there. I smell you, that's how close it is. I jump into the workouts with them. I'm not going to pick and choose my battles. If I'm in it, I'm in it.
"Like today, I was in the entire workout. I think that's something the guys respond well too. They like that. That's me, that's not me trying to show off, that's just me my whole life. If somebody else is working, I've got to get some too. I think they like that.
"Also some of the agility drills, working on the hip mobility and things like that. Using hurdles. You know we've got the sand pit being built right now. Using the oxygen mask, just different ways to skin a cat. I'm just the guy doing it with a creative mind. I think outside the box. I'm just attacking it every day."
Is that sand pit your idea?
"Yeah, that was my idea. I've used sand training myself as an athlete. In Houston, I actually work out at this place called Eleanor Tinsley Park where me and other athletes that I train and/or people that I just train regularly, we go out there and we go at it in the sand. There's a lot of great things with that so that was one of the first things that I asked coach for when I got here on the interview. I told Coach Crean the benefits of it and he signed on board with that.
"Same with the training masks, those were my idea as well. I worked for the Denver Broncos before as a full-time intern for them in their weight room. Feeling that altitude up there in Denver was serious. I just want an edge. At the end of the day, a lot of people train hard but here we're going to train with a hard edge and that's different. That was another idea. We also do heated yoga. That's something I'm big on. I will be certified if you ask me again in a year."
What is heated Yoga?
"Heated--101 degrees and about 60 percent humidity. That's what our guys do, you know working on balance, core, strength and working on that mind because again the first muscle is the mind. That's what we do. These are different things they've never done before. Doing hurdles, they've never used hurdles before--track hurdles. These are things they've never done before. Now that's not saying anything that they did before was wrong, but it wasn't me. I am who I am and those are the things I'm going to use to give those guys an advantage."
On the size of the sand pit:
"I'm going to get the entire team in this thing. It will be 40 feet by 30 (feet). I tried to get an Olympic-size sand pit. We're going to play a game called Hoosier Boy. You're going to have to come check that out, it's going to be amazing. It's a great biometric workout, core and mind, and I'm in it, too. Every day, we're going to use the sand as much as possible, you know, get the guys off the concrete, get them off the court, get them off just the regular things they've been doing and put them on that new stuff. So yeah, the sand pit will be right there. It will be awesome."
Let me ask you one thing, how did you get into this profession when your career was over?
Well, like every kid, I was like, "Man, I'm going to the NBA. I'm a beast. I'm a dog. I'm going to make it." And then this happened and that happened and this happened and I got a little taste. Then after I got that taste, I was still hungry. I went home and looked around and never did see anything that was my speed.
"Coach Mark Mangino is a great man. He was a mentor to me. He taught me how it is to be tough, in an essence, besides my parents and what was naturally in me. He just pushed me even harder and built my mental threshold, my mental capacity. I just found fun in training people and getting people to accomplish their dreams. Like I tell the guys all the time, you have dreams, you have aspirations and goals. Well I've tasted a little bit of all of that, and I want to help you chase those things.
"Once I realized that I liked to get people better and I had a skill, a communication skill to touch their souls and make them want to do it even if they don't want to do it, I said, "Hmm. How much do they get paid?" Once I realized that it was all good, I was like, "Hey, I'm going to be a strength coach." The day it happened, I came home, my son was about one year old, and I just dropped my now-wife off, and I was sitting outside her job, and it just started raining. For some odd reason, I just started crying because I realized I wasn't where I wanted to be. This was after I was done playing ball.
"So I just called Chris Dawson, who was the head strength coach and Kansas State and who was my head strength coach at the University of Kansas. I told him, "Hey coach, you know, I need to get my degree. I need to start somewhere." I had left school early so it was like, okay, well let's start from where you left. At least I'd know I'd get pushed hard. So I went. I volunteered for a year. I slept on my former-teammate Rodney Fowler's couch. His dog would lick my face. I would have to build my own fortress of chairs in front of the couch, and I slept there for a whole year, and I didn't get paid. I wasn't paid. I wasn't even on scholarship again because I had left.
"So I did that for about six months working in the weight room for free. Waking up every day at 4 a.m., being at the gym by 5 a.m., staying until 5 p.m. Then he rewarded me with a graduate assistant program in which I started to take grad school and I was still doing the same schedule, but now going to class until 10, 11 at night. Then I left and went to Denver and that's where the track started."
Are there major differences between coaching football and basketball? Are there major differenecs there?
Yeah, there are and there aren't. It's just about how you get it out of them, you know? A hundred guys (versus) 15 guys--that's the biggest difference. Other than that, it all starts up top in the head.
"People say, 'Oh, basketball players don't like to lift." That's not true. Basketball players are humans. It's not like there's a basketball player and other humans that like to work out. Everyone likes to work out. It's just how you get it out of them. It's just what you put in front of them. So for me, this whole week, I asked the guys every day. You know, I want feedback. I'm a guy that I want to know what they feel, how they feel. That's why I jump in the workouts as well so I can relate to them, and you know, it's an open door. If they have any questions or anything they want to talk to me about or any suggestions, I'm open to that, too. Now, it's still my show, but at the end of the day I want my players to know that I have their back. So at the end of the day, they have their differences. Other than that, now is now and time is time. So that's how I look at these two."
How important is it especially early on to have that open door policy early on?
"Yeah, more to get to know them. I don't really care too much about, per se, how much a guy can bench. I care about what's in his heart, what's in his mind. Where's his leadership skills? What are his goals and aspirations? And how do you want to help get this team where we need to be. You know, that's big for me. That's one of the big things."