Meet the DomTech Coaches: Eric Dudley - Technical Track and Field

Track and field usually feels like an individual sport. Yes, we try to win championships as a collective group, but it is our individual performances that drive that success. Coach Dudley has an uncanny ability to make his athletes feel like it’s a team sport first. An ability to bring the bigger picture into perspective and drive us to support one another to victory.

Not only is Coach Dudley an accomplished athlete himself, qualifying for the U.S. Championships in 8 consecutive years (2001-2008), including 2 Olympic Trials, but he’s also an academic at heart. Dudley graduated summa cum laude in mechanical engineering with a minor in mathematics from the Honors College of Washington State in 2003. He also earned a master's degree in kinesiology with an emphasis in biomechanics and motor control from Illinois. 

Dudley developed a “Money Ball” recruiting metric which included factors of typical expected improvement values, the institutions financial landscape, and conference strengths and weaknesses to identify target recruiting zones and lay out a road-map to compete for a Conference Championship. While at HPU, he could forecast our team’s outcomes and would challenge us all to prove his predictions wrong. The best on the team weren’t the only ones who mattered, every single point mattered equally. First or eighth, to Coach Dudley, you mattered.

His predictions and precise programming led HPU to 11 individual NCAA first round appearances, 11 individual conference championships, and 47 school records. Dudley has a wide range of skills and not only coaches his own specialty in hurdling, but at HPU he also oversaw the vaulters, high jumpers, throws and multi event athletes.


Dudley is a once in a lifetime type of coach and will be DomTech’s adviser looking into the technical side of the sport. Look for his first post this coming Friday!

Chip Explains Cupping Therapy

Over the past couple of weeks, most of us were glued to our televisions for the Rio Olympics. Swimming seemed to steal the show as always, with Michael Phelps picking up another 5 gold medals and becoming the most Olympic decorated athlete of all time. When Phelps showed up for his first races in Rio, everyone watching on TV wondered the same thing: “What are all those circles all over his shoulders?”

The treatment that Phelps and many others underwent is known as cupping. Although this is the newest trend in the media as a means of treatment and recovery, forms of cupping date back almost 1500 years¹. This treatment has been used for many conditions, ranging from musculoskeletal injuries to acne and dyspnea². There are many different forms of cupping: wet, dry, fire, medicinal, among others. For fire cupping, a pre-heated cup is placed over the skin, and the reduction in air volume under the cup will create a vacuum that sucks the skin up into the cup. Since we don’t enjoy playing with fire at Queens University, we use suction guns to create the same effect when we cup our athletes. I’m sure you’re wondering: does it actually work?

For athletes and the active population, I’ll focus a quick discussion of research on musculoskeletal uses. While there are some promising preliminary studies, the conclusion with all of these studies is that much research remains to be done^3-5. Some studies showed significant reductions in pain in patients with low back pain⁴ when compared with other treatments, while others showed no difference from traditional massage in chronic neck pain⁵. When more definitive and high quality research is available, we’ll know if Michael Phelps was onto something in Rio!

1.     Andrew Rippin and Jan Knappert, Textual Sources for the Study of Islam, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. 78.

2.     Cao, Huijuan, Xun Li, and Jianping Liu. "An updated review of the efficacy of cupping therapy." PLoS One 7.2 (2012): e31793.

3.     Al Bedah Abdullah M.N., Khalil Mohamed K.M., Posadzki Paul, Sohaibani Imen, Aboushanab Tamer Shaaban, AlQaed Meshari, and Ali Gazzaffi I.M.. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. August 2016, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/acm.2016.0193.

4.     Huang, Chia-Yu, Mun-Yau Choong, and Tzong-Shiun Li. "Effectiveness of cupping therapy for low back pain: a systematic review." Acupuncture in Medicine (2013): acupmed-2013

5.     Lauche, Romy, et al. "Effectiveness of home-based cupping massage compared to progressive muscle relaxation in patients with chronic neck pain—A randomized controlled trial." PloS one 8.6 (2013): e65378 [FFT]

Meet the DomTech Coaches: Chip Wintringham - Athletic Training

If you have competed in sports throughout your life, chances are at one point you were sidelined because of an injury. If not, congratulations, you are superhuman. Some people are more injury prone than others, myself included. I never went a year without some kind of injury mishap. Between dislocated knees, broken ankles, torn ligaments, concussions and surgeries, I’ve pretty much been through it all. Sometimes they couldn’t have been prevented, but in many cases I could have been back in action much more quickly if I had really been listening to the trainers advising me instead of picking and choosing which advice to follow, as many of us do.

Chip Wintringham is our Athletic Training Advisor here at DomTech and his contributions are meant to help us all stay healthy and be mindful of injury prevention. Chip was my athletic trainer back at High Point University and saw me through several running injuries. He has since been swept away by Queens University to work with their track and field, basketball and triathlon teams. He received his undergraduate education from Emory and Henry College, where he played tennis. Chip received his graduate degree from the University of Virginia and became a certified athletic trainer in 2012. His first post will be up at the end of this week. 

Don't Forget Your Roots

Outside of high school and college, cross country is the forgotten version of competitive running. With the local road race scene so crowded on any given weekend that you can barely throw a rock without hitting a race, and with the recent growth of trail running, many runners have forgotten about the real roots of running – cross country.

Although one may think a cross country course is the same as a trail run, the typical cross country course does not seek out the rocky paths, steep hills, and deep woods that many trail runners have come to love. Cross country makes more use of fields and open spaces. There may be some creek jumps and wooded areas to traverse, but these are not nearly as demanding as the trail run may be. Personally, although the trail runs are fun, when I’ve done trail runs I’ve missed the competitive aspect as I seemed to be more worried about foot placement and finding the next trail marker as opposed to running down the competitor 50 meters ahead of me.

I do not in any way demean trail or road running. They are all wonderful variations of the activity of distance racing. But when you look to plan your races this fall, try something different, or return to your roots in the true cross country setting you once thrived in. The best place to find open cross country races is your local running shoe store or running club. You may need to search a little longer or drive a little further to find a true cross country race, but I think you’ll be pleased that you did. When you do find a great race, or if you are hosting one, leave a comment and spread the word to fellow readers!

-Larry Rechtin

Meet the DomTech Coaches: Larry Rechtin -- Distance Running

For many athletes, running comes as a form of punishment. Sprints for being late, taking a lap for that F-bomb you dropped after a poorly missed goal. But for those that are crazy enough to fall in love with the sport, running is a form of therapy. Running stimulates a constant battle within yourself, pushing your mind past the pain—to go faster or farther, to reach your new personal best. Yes, you run against other athletes, but your primary competitor is always yourself.

Larry Rechtin is no stranger to that internal battle and is decorated as both an athlete and as a coach in track and field and cross country. He is a member of Bellarmine College’s Hall of Fame for his performance as an NCAA II National Qualifier in 1980 and 1982 in the 1500, as well as for his school records that still stand today. His passion for running endures the test of time and continues to grow.  As recently as 2011, he placed 11^th in the 1500 at the World Masters Track and Field Championships.

For 26 years, Coach Rechtin has been Pottsgrove High School’s cross country and track and field distance coach. His recent coaching successes include numerous PA state qualifiers and medalists as well as a PIAA XC team victory in 2012 and runner up in 2013.

Coach Rechtin is our guide through the challenges of distance running. His first post will comment on the different forms of races available for runners and how to find one near you.

Build Up What You Tear Down

Would you put regular gas in a Lamborghini? This is the phrase that is always used to try and explain why nutrition is so important for athletes. It’s used to get athletes to look at themselves as a machine that needs the right fuel to function, but the reality is nutrition is so much more important than that to an athlete. Machines either run or they don’t while athletes have good days, bad days, injured days, and completely in-the-zone days. How consistently an athlete has good and in-the-zone days compared to bad and injured days can often make the difference between being able to move onto the next level, or retiring their sporting career early.

 This is the reason why nutrition is such an important piece of the athlete’s training plan. Practice, weight lifting, and even physical therapy breaks the body down. One of the largest determinate factors of whether or not an athlete will be ready to go full speed again the next day is how he/she builds their body back up. Proper nutrition can get this done through 3 main ways. First eating high quality lean protein such as chicken or fish will give your muscles the protein they need to repair themselves. Second, consuming whole grain products will replace the energy you exerted during your training so the next day you are ready to go again. The third way is consuming 5-8 servings a day of fruits and vegetables a day. Though often over looked by athletes, this is the most important factor because it can help reduce inflammation which helps with muscle recovery, reduces risk of chronic inflammation related injuries, and keeps the immune system strong to assist in minimizing sick days.

All three of these components (protein, whole grains and carbohydrates, and fruits and vegetables) should be incorporated into each meal you eat throughout the day to ensure your body a steady stream of the nutrients it needs to perform at its optimum level. Once athletes have been able to achieve this, they are ready to focus more on what is called “nutrient timing”. Look out for my next article explaining how focusing on different food groups during different parts of your day and training cycle can give athletes an extra benefit on top of what was discussed here. In the meantime, use the plates below to help guide you in making your plates throughout your training and competition year.

As fall sports begin, remember to emphasize to athletes everywhere the importance of nutrition and to focus on building up everything that you tear down! Michael Coseo, MS, RD, LD

Meet the DomTech Coaches: Michael Coseo -- Sports Nutrition

All serious athletes know that performance improvement doesn’t stop when you leave practice. The way we fuel our bodies influences the way our muscles recover and our ability to perform in our next workout. Our coaches are always telling us how important it is to sleep enough, fully hydrate and eat healthy, but many of us don’t understand what is actually going on within our bodies and why this is so important, which keeps us from fully committing to making good out-of-practice choices.

Our nutrition advisor here at DomTech, Michael Coseo, is here to help us understand these internal processes to help us make the right choices optimizing our ability to perform at our best every day.

Michael is a registered Nutritionist and licensed Dietitian in the state of South Carolina. He received his undergrad education at the University of South Carolina with a major in Exercise Science and then attended Winthrop University where he gained a Master of Science in Human Nutrition with a 4.0 GPA.

While at USC he interned with the Athletic Department to develop original educational materials highlighting the effects different nutrients can have on elite athletes. He also worked with the school’s catering services to develop weekly menus and created new recipes for the training table. He formed nutritional and performance based table inserts and handouts and presented sports related nutritional information to USC’s athletic teams. He is a current member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the Collegiate and Professional Sport Dietitian Association.

Michael will be highlighted in our first blog post next week explaining how practice and workouts break your body down, and how you fuel your body determines how it is built back up.