A Sit-Down With James Heiss
2/15/2024 10:30:00 AM | Football, Strength and Conditioning
New strength coach sees positives early on in weight room
James Heiss serves as Georgia Southern's director of football strength & conditioning, a position he assumed in January of this year. Heiss spent the 2023 season as the associate director with Nebraska football and worked the previous four seasons at Buffalo. In his time at Nebraska, Heiss oversaw the football strength & conditioning program in the absence of its head strength & conditioning coach. He led all weight room and on-field programming levels, designing, periodizing, and implementing year-round training. He was also responsible for the year-round training of all offensive and defensive linemen and assisted the coordinator of return to play with the return of acute injuries.
With the Eagles now a few weeks into their eight-week training cycle before spring practice begins, GSEagles.com got a chance to catch up with the new leader of the weight room and get his thoughts on how he trains, what he inherited and his philosophies. Below are the first few answers during his interview.
You can watch the entire interview here.
Q: Can you give us three adjectives or phrases that describe your philosophy in the weight room?
A: Actually, what I'm going to do here is steal right from Coach Helton. The three words that we use in this program are the same ones I'm going to use right now, which are toughness, discipline and united. Obviously, I use those words in different ways than Coach Helton does, but from a toughness standpoint, that can mean a multitude of different things, like pushing through hard things. It can be the toughness to show up on time every day. From a discipline standpoint, it's the discipline of doing the details the right way and how that can win and lose you football games. I think it gets misconstrued that the weight room is the weight room, and the football field is the football field. Trying to blend those things together and ingraining habits of discipline of details in here every day will give us that discipline on Saturdays in the fall. Then united is obviously a big one. A connected team is a dangerous team, and I think trying to bring guys together in this realm really teaches them to trust each other, and it really teaches them to work hard with each other and lead each other.
Q: You talked about the connected piece a little bit there at the end. Obviously, a lot of team chemistry and bonding happens in the weight room these first couple of months before you even get into spring ball. How do you think the guys have been handling it?
A: I think the benefit that I have in my role is that I'm entering into Year Three of Coach Helton's program. And yes, while we're in Year One here in the weight room, in the way that I do things, I see and reap all the benefits of Year One and Year Two. What I've seen emerge really in the last two weeks are the older leaders on the team who have been here through a lot of turnover and change and turmoil are really starting to find their feet as leaders. And even better, the guys want to hear it, and they listen.
I think that there are three pieces to leadership. I think there are leaders of the team, which are those guys I'm talking about. There are leaders on the team who are kind of your second-in-command. They kind of drive those things that your leaders or your coaches or your position coaches or coordinators are preaching. Then there are leaders in training or followers, and I think we have a lot of really young guys who are doing that at a high level. You know those guys will be in those first two roles before they even know it, but the first key to that is 'how do I take leadership' and 'how do I learn from these guys who have seen all these things before me,' and it's clear every day. These guys know how to work. Coming in the door has been the most shocking thing to me, where it's like, 'Wow, we don't need to spend any time flipping the switch and working.' And I think that speaks to the leadership that connected this. And more importantly, they care about each other by how they work. When you have a group of 114 guys who show up every day and do a workout, we're asking them to do it at the level that they're doing it, it shows me that they care about each other. When you care and feel like you're letting teammates down, when you live up to the standard being held, that's united to me. And I think that we're seeing at a high level right now.
Q: Your attention to detail has stood out, like having the guys put the weights in the same position or ensuring all the "Eagles" are up. Can you talk about that attention in detail and how you think that carries over from the way room to the field?
A: Attention to detail is a huge piece of how 1) I operate my life and 2) I believe successful people operate theirs. Yes, it's a huge part of our program to pay attention to detail in this weight room when we clean up at the end of the day. We call it Make Your Bed. So, at the end of the lift, 'Hey, everybody, make your bed.' Let's reset the racks as you found them or to our baseline. And we'll go around. Yeah, we will check. And I'll joke around with the guys. I'm going to pull my level out and make sure that these dumbbells are right with the logo up. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Number one on that list is just respecting our space and respecting our things. I think that you know, in your life, if you look around and you go into someone's house and their kitchen's a mess, I bet you their life is a mess. And so I believe that, and I say that to our guys. I tell that to recruits when they walk in the door because that's where it starts.
I think everybody's heard the old adage, 'When you make your bed in the morning, you set yourself up for a better day.' Well, that's why we use that. A small win can take you really far. And so that's the first piece. The second piece is Attention to Detail wins and loses football games. And as a fan, as a player, as a coach, everybody has seen those things. Third and one in the red zone at defensive lineman jumps offsides. All of a sudden, they got a new set of downs and that detail to just listen to the game, listen to the cadence, and watch the ball. Those little tiny details will win and lose games, especially when you're on the cusp of being a great football team. There are the levels to football where you're either losing by big, you're losing by close, you're winning by close, you're winning by big. And when you're in that middle ground where you might be losing close and winning close, those details make the difference.
And so when you can ingrain that in your everyday life, you ingrain that in the way you train, you ingrain that in the way you practice. All of a sudden, it's not so hard on Saturday to do those things. And more importantly, what I just said about your life. Yes, we want to win football games. Yes, we want to be great in this weight room. Yes, we want our details there, but we want these young men to go be productive members of society and have detail in themselves as husbands, as fathers, as brothers, as sons. And so, starting here in the weight room, maybe it's brand new information for some of them. Just putting your dumbbells back the right way is a great place to start, and then you build off that, and you see where that grows.
Georgia Southern opens the season on Aug. 31 against defending Mountain West champion Boise State at home. Season ticket renewals and sales are underway. For more information, go to GSEagles.com/PowerOfPaulson.
With the Eagles now a few weeks into their eight-week training cycle before spring practice begins, GSEagles.com got a chance to catch up with the new leader of the weight room and get his thoughts on how he trains, what he inherited and his philosophies. Below are the first few answers during his interview.
You can watch the entire interview here.
Q: Can you give us three adjectives or phrases that describe your philosophy in the weight room?
A: Actually, what I'm going to do here is steal right from Coach Helton. The three words that we use in this program are the same ones I'm going to use right now, which are toughness, discipline and united. Obviously, I use those words in different ways than Coach Helton does, but from a toughness standpoint, that can mean a multitude of different things, like pushing through hard things. It can be the toughness to show up on time every day. From a discipline standpoint, it's the discipline of doing the details the right way and how that can win and lose you football games. I think it gets misconstrued that the weight room is the weight room, and the football field is the football field. Trying to blend those things together and ingraining habits of discipline of details in here every day will give us that discipline on Saturdays in the fall. Then united is obviously a big one. A connected team is a dangerous team, and I think trying to bring guys together in this realm really teaches them to trust each other, and it really teaches them to work hard with each other and lead each other.
Q: You talked about the connected piece a little bit there at the end. Obviously, a lot of team chemistry and bonding happens in the weight room these first couple of months before you even get into spring ball. How do you think the guys have been handling it?
A: I think the benefit that I have in my role is that I'm entering into Year Three of Coach Helton's program. And yes, while we're in Year One here in the weight room, in the way that I do things, I see and reap all the benefits of Year One and Year Two. What I've seen emerge really in the last two weeks are the older leaders on the team who have been here through a lot of turnover and change and turmoil are really starting to find their feet as leaders. And even better, the guys want to hear it, and they listen.
I think that there are three pieces to leadership. I think there are leaders of the team, which are those guys I'm talking about. There are leaders on the team who are kind of your second-in-command. They kind of drive those things that your leaders or your coaches or your position coaches or coordinators are preaching. Then there are leaders in training or followers, and I think we have a lot of really young guys who are doing that at a high level. You know those guys will be in those first two roles before they even know it, but the first key to that is 'how do I take leadership' and 'how do I learn from these guys who have seen all these things before me,' and it's clear every day. These guys know how to work. Coming in the door has been the most shocking thing to me, where it's like, 'Wow, we don't need to spend any time flipping the switch and working.' And I think that speaks to the leadership that connected this. And more importantly, they care about each other by how they work. When you have a group of 114 guys who show up every day and do a workout, we're asking them to do it at the level that they're doing it, it shows me that they care about each other. When you care and feel like you're letting teammates down, when you live up to the standard being held, that's united to me. And I think that we're seeing at a high level right now.
Q: Your attention to detail has stood out, like having the guys put the weights in the same position or ensuring all the "Eagles" are up. Can you talk about that attention in detail and how you think that carries over from the way room to the field?
A: Attention to detail is a huge piece of how 1) I operate my life and 2) I believe successful people operate theirs. Yes, it's a huge part of our program to pay attention to detail in this weight room when we clean up at the end of the day. We call it Make Your Bed. So, at the end of the lift, 'Hey, everybody, make your bed.' Let's reset the racks as you found them or to our baseline. And we'll go around. Yeah, we will check. And I'll joke around with the guys. I'm going to pull my level out and make sure that these dumbbells are right with the logo up. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Number one on that list is just respecting our space and respecting our things. I think that you know, in your life, if you look around and you go into someone's house and their kitchen's a mess, I bet you their life is a mess. And so I believe that, and I say that to our guys. I tell that to recruits when they walk in the door because that's where it starts.
I think everybody's heard the old adage, 'When you make your bed in the morning, you set yourself up for a better day.' Well, that's why we use that. A small win can take you really far. And so that's the first piece. The second piece is Attention to Detail wins and loses football games. And as a fan, as a player, as a coach, everybody has seen those things. Third and one in the red zone at defensive lineman jumps offsides. All of a sudden, they got a new set of downs and that detail to just listen to the game, listen to the cadence, and watch the ball. Those little tiny details will win and lose games, especially when you're on the cusp of being a great football team. There are the levels to football where you're either losing by big, you're losing by close, you're winning by close, you're winning by big. And when you're in that middle ground where you might be losing close and winning close, those details make the difference.
And so when you can ingrain that in your everyday life, you ingrain that in the way you train, you ingrain that in the way you practice. All of a sudden, it's not so hard on Saturday to do those things. And more importantly, what I just said about your life. Yes, we want to win football games. Yes, we want to be great in this weight room. Yes, we want our details there, but we want these young men to go be productive members of society and have detail in themselves as husbands, as fathers, as brothers, as sons. And so, starting here in the weight room, maybe it's brand new information for some of them. Just putting your dumbbells back the right way is a great place to start, and then you build off that, and you see where that grows.
Georgia Southern opens the season on Aug. 31 against defending Mountain West champion Boise State at home. Season ticket renewals and sales are underway. For more information, go to GSEagles.com/PowerOfPaulson.
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