My First Three Weeks as a Strength Coach
By
Adam Plagens
Since I enlisted in the U.S. Army, I’ve wanted to be a coach. My drive is
directly related to my high school experiences as a student athlete and the
positive impact one person can have on another individual. I have to thank
George Hamblin for the years of instruction and motivation that he provided.
During those four years on the wrestling mat, I learned more about dealing with
adversity and challenges than at any other time.
Fast forward eight years—I applied to a strength and conditioning coach position
at a local high school, and surprisingly, I was selected. My dream of becoming a
coach and working with athletes was starting to come true. During the initial
month of employment, I worked with the strength and conditioning committee to
complete the school’s set and rep system and connect to coaches in relation to
injuries and sport-specific auxiliary lifts.
During my first week as a strength coach, several key issues came up in relation
to furthering my employment. The biggest one was informing the committee of the
various lifts that exist for every athlete and team. I listed five alternate
exercises for each main lift and explained that a rotation of the lifts will
help prevent injury and incorporate other support muscles during the lifts, thus
teaching the athlete to use the body as a unit through various movements.
There’s a time to speak.
During several meetings, coaches easily confused sport-specific training with
general fitness training. As a strength coach, I reminded them that four sets of
ten is not the best way to get your kids ready for every sport. Also, you
can’t expect every athlete to perform a given lift as well as his or her
classmates. As a coach, my job is to teach, motivate, and educate. I teach kids
how to lift properly and safely. I educate the athletes and coaches about
performance training, flexibility, and progression concepts in relation to their
training. Motivation is what I use to get the most effort for each lift.
By keeping the coaches and athletes on track in relation to training and
progress, I’m able to help the coaches understand various training concepts.
This can be as easy as detailing the need for stretching or explaining that the
core consists of more than the abdominals. More pressing matters can include
progression training, lift variations, and the understanding of lifting speed
and force production.
There’s a time to shut the hell up.
As a newly hired coach, there is a bit of dissention in relation to what I bring
and how I handle the system. Some coaches are great to talk to, and they’re
interested and motivated that I’m there. Then, there are some who just don’t
like or understand what I do. I have to accept that not everyone is going to
like me. I also have to communicate that the issues presented aren’t unique to a
single coach or sport. However, there is a time to talk with a coach and a time
to let a coach vent.
A good example of this was the first official meeting with the coaching
staff. I presented the new program to the coaches. The questions ran the gamut
of “what times are training?” to “why us and why now?” I answered the questions
in relation to the presentation and kept from entering into any kind of debate
in front of 60 strangers meeting me for the first time.
As a first time coach, I know that my philosophy and training principles are
seen as a confrontation to what has been done and is a major point of conflict.
Instead of standing there trying to force 60 people to accept what I want to do,
the best approach is to utilize what they want to do and slowly introduce new
concepts and principles. This allows me to share my programming and gain support
as the coaches, athletes, and parents see the progress.
Although not particularly interesting, these first experiences as a strength
coach will help me to forge a successful and promising future over the coming
years.
Week Two
As a strength coach, my job is to help improve an athlete’s ability to perform
on the field. This is done through a variety of resistance exercises and
flexibility training as well as energy system conditioning and agility drills to
improve force production and reaction time.
I initiated a four-week strength camp to allow the student athletes and
coaches an opportunity to meet me and see me in action. The two primary reasons
behind this mini-camp were to get the athletes to understand how and what to
expect from me in the coming year and to evaluate the room’s current set up and
determine what and how to implement the program in a safe, effective, and
efficient manner. Here’s a brief recap of what I experienced over the course of
the first two weeks.
To begin, I anticipated a rather large grouping of athletes for the four-week
camp. But that wasn’t the case. I did get to work with a variety of male and
female athletes all ranging in age, lifting experience, and sport. This allowed
me to gauge my ability to coach a wide range of athletes and make sure the
progression is appropriate for the sport and the athlete.
This led to several interesting observations:
· Student athletes listen to you.
· Stretching the hips isn’t adequately addressed.
· As a coach, you don’t need to yell to get the best effort from
your athletes.
· Student athletes need down time to be kids.
From these observations, the last one is the most important. There is way too
much emphasis on off-season development. Although the need to develop for the
game is important, kids need to be kids. Vacations, family commitments, and
other things are going to come up. As a coach, it might not happen at the most
opportune moment, but that doesn’t mean it should be postponed. Again, there
needs to be a balance. High school athletes will find out about sacrifice soon
enough.
The best observation is the first one. The athletes will listen and rarely will
they give you issues in terms of the training or the day’s programming. The kids
want to perform and want to get better. The only challenge is getting the best
effort on every rep and set. Sometimes athletes want to hold back because they
feel like there is going to be more if they get done early. My personal
philosophy is that as long as I get the best effort from the athletes during the
session, it doesn’t matter if it takes two hours or 30 minutes.
The most important correction is getting the hips to be open and flexible. For
athletes, hips are the fundamental source of movement, stability, force
production, and force transfer. However, the hips aren’t directly stretched or
prepared in terms of lifting. I plan to change this with dynamic and functional
movements to help improve hip function and flexibility.
This has been a busy two weeks, and I anticipate getting even busier as the
school year begins and the fall athletic season ramps up.
Week Three
As I approach the third week of summer conditioning, there are a number of
surprises that I have encountered over the past week. To begin, the athletes
I’ve worked with are starting to “get it.” By getting it, I mean the kids
understand that my job is to get them stronger and to assist them in performing
better. I will push them to work hard, and as long as they give me 100 percent
during the session, I won’t get upset. On the negative side, I only have one
week left with them and then I get to start working with all teams and coaches
as the school year gets ready to start. This could very well mean a loss in the
progress that has been made so far.
My biggest asset as a new coach has been the ability to explain to the coaches
that strength and conditioning isn’t simply about lifting heavier and heavier
weights. Speed, flexibility, coordination, agility, and response time as well as
lateral and horizontal movement are all various complexes within a strength and
conditioning program. To focus on one component (i.e. strength) limits the
athletic capacity of the players. To ignore flexibility correlates to a loss of
movement and reaction time while also increasing injury risk.
I explained that I want strong kids but not at the expense of speed and
power. I would rather have a squad of female volleyball players that can squat
205 pounds for five reps in ten seconds that a squad that can squat 315 pounds
one time in ten seconds. Force generation is a key concept in relation to player
development and athleticism. This seems to be overlooked quite regularly in
relation to high school kids and strength training.
As I continue down this path, I see a number of issues that will develop, but
I’m not overwhelmed with any of them. I actually look forward to proving myself
as a professional and developing a solid foundation to build a quality program.
Adam Plagens is a personal trainer at the Livonia Family YMCA and the
strength and conditioning coach for Saline High School. He is completing his
masters degree in health education while raising a family of three along with
his three-lift total.
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