What a great article to learn from today. Thanks Coach Chapman for sharing so much knowledge about things that you have experienced as strength coach at the High School level.
Create a clear and compelling vision, as well as a system to support that vision
I recommend reading How To Build And Sustain A Championship Culture by Jeff Janssen. This book lays out 10 steps you can go through to create a championship culture. Once you have the intangible parts of strength and conditioning covered, develop a strength and conditioning system that supports your vision. Want to emphasize being competitive? Make competing a daily part of your program. Want your students to move extremely well? Assess and program mobility.
Communicate your vision and system to everyone involved in the program
While it’s obvious that you need to communicate the how’s and why’s to your students and sport team coaches, it may be less obvious that you need to create buy-in from the school’s administration team and support staff. Many of the decisions that will be made for your program come from people who may not have much interest or knowledge of strength and conditioning. The real magic happens when you can communicate your vision and system to the Athletic Director, Principal, Superintendent, School Board, Guidance Counselors, etc., in a way that makes sense to them. You must learn to speak the language of education. This will open up more opportunities for your students in terms of classes and resources available.
Unified, Not Uniform
The phrase “Unified, Not Uniform” has been made popular by many of the top coaches in the National High School Strength Coaches Association (NHSSCA). The general idea here is that all students should be participating in a structured strength and conditioning training regime to improve their physical and mental performance. Given the training age of most middle school and high school students, 90% of their needs are identical. Ask yourself, do a basketball player and a swimmer who have both been lifting weights for 3 months really need a specialized program? Save yourself the time and stress by writing an overarching program with slight changes based on each training group’s frequency and proficiency with movements. This goes back to creating a system that supports your vision. When in doubt, Keep It Stupid Simple (KISS Principle).
Write Your Training Plans In Pencil
Simple concept here but so often overlooked. There are a million different things that will happen over the course of a semester to disrupt your perfectly periodized program. There will be snow days, hurricane days, fire drills, tornado drills, pep rallys, half days, testing days, the list goes on and on. On top of that, some groups and classes may progress at different speeds than others or you might have a team whose games keep getting cancelled and rescheduled. Again don’t stress about getting the minutiae perfect, make sure you’re moving the big rocks (main movements) and adjust the pebbles (accessory stuff) as needed.
Play The Long Game
This section itself probably could be an entire article by itself but I’m going to try to summarize a few key points:
For your students:
There are two different ways that we need to focus on the long game with our students: health/well-being and enjoyment. If you’re reading this article I assume you understand the concept of progressive overload, however most coaches only look at this in the mesocycle or even the annual plan, rarely do you see this concept applied to a 6 year window of training. Too often I see coaches chasing big measurable numbers (I have been guilty of this) on lift maxes, instead of slow cooking the training process. We don’t need our students to be their strongest as 8th graders, we need them to be strong, fast, and above all else injury resistant (notice I don’t use injury free or injury prevention) as Juniors and Seniors. In addition to keeping our students healthy, we need to make sure they enjoy the program. While you and I might enjoy a dirty, smelly weight room with Pantera blasting in the background, most high school students do not. Find ways to make your program fun. Let the kids pick the music (censored only of course), create special clubs to keep them motivated or earn a t-shirt, have daily competitions and themed lift days. When in doubt, ask them for ideas.
For you as a coach and as a program:
Building a program and a career TAKES TIME. When I first started at GHS we had 1 lifting class and no before/after school program. Fast forward 7 years and we have 900+ kids involved (MS and HS), 6 classes per day, and a beautiful new training facility. I don’t say that to brag, but instead to hopefully motivate you to see what’s possible. You’re going to have people who don’t agree with you and things not go your way. We still have coaches who do not have their teams come train with us even after all these years. You will always have your early adopters, your majority, and your laggards. I find that frequently in athletics, the right way finds it’s way. What I mean by that is simple: people and programs who do things the wrong way fall to the wayside while those who do things the right way will rise above.