Matt Hank

A lot of strength coaches and personal trainers try to come up with  intense strength training and conditioning/metabolic programs.  Many strength coaches become well-known because of their crazy methods in the weight room or on the field.  However, it is a lot easier to put together an intense program than to put together a complete and comprehensive program.  For example, just put together a list of exercises that you know will elevate your heart and make you want to throw up.  Now devise a plan where you can use these different exercises in some type of sequence.  There you go, now you have a crazy hardcore training program.  The only thing that is missing is some yelling and screaming at athletes while they try to perform this intense circuit.

Now try to evaluate the needs of your athletes – strength, power, fitness, movement patterns, stability, mobility, and change of direction just to name a few important qualities.  Then put together a comprehensive year round program that address all the weaknesses or dysfunctions while at the same time pushing your athletes beyond their current capabilities.  You will have to take into account different training phases and methodologies to ensure progress without overtraining your athletes.  This is a completely different type of coach then the one previously mentioned in the first paragraph.

Coaches, athletes and parents make sure to choose the right coach.

Train Hard – Train Smart
www.asap-pt.com

The great coaches have goals for their teams/athletes and devise a plan that will accomplish those goals.  For example if the goal for a basketball team is to win a championship the coach will put together a strategy for each opponent, teach technical and tactical skills, create a season long practice schedule, and motivate/inspire his athletes.  This leads me to my main topic…This same approach (guiding athletes to success) should be taken by strength and conditioning coaches as well.  A game plan needs to be in place if the athletes are going to consistently improve throughout the training program.  I see too many coaches (many times it’s the head coach because the team doesn’t have a qualified strength and conditioning coach on staff) take the approach “no pain, no gain” or “100% intensity every time”.  Of course you want your athletes to work hard, but it should be a planned routine consisting of high, medium, and low intensity days.  There should be days were you teach your athletes (low intensity) and days where you condition the heck out of your athletes (high intensity).

Going along the same lines…Soreness is not necessarily a sign of great workout.  Anyone can make an athlete sore (literally anyone that knows how to talk – just say “run 100 sprints uphill” or “do 500 push ups and sit ups”).  I love to hear athletes say things like “my coach has the hardest workouts” or the “the training sessions are so intense”.  I ask the athlete what they did during the training session and usually their response is something like this “first we did a mile run, 100 sit ups, bench press and lat pull downs and finished with the leg press/leg extensions/leg curl for 5 sets.  I couldn’t move my legs for 3 days”.   There are definitely ways to make the training routine more sport specific.   If an athlete only has only X number of training sessions before the season starts, the coach should make the workouts as sport specific as possible.  There are times to work on general fitness and conditioning, but make sure it follows your yearly plan.  Every training session should follow the game plan and help the team/athletes accomplish their ultimate goals.

Remember “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

Train Hard-Train Smart
www.asap-pt.com