The High School Athlete: Football: The Complete Program for Strength and Conditioning - For Players and Coaches

PART I:

MOTIVATION

This section focuses on what we’ll refer to as the art of strength and conditioning and is presented with both athletes and coaches in mind. The information provided applies equally to both aspects of football training—coaching technique and athletic performance—but athletes and coaches should be approaching the training from the mindset that best suits their respective positions.

COACHES

At the end of the day, coaching in its purest form is the act of recognizing and adapting to situations in order to optimize your athletes’ performance—both on the field and in the weight room. The best coaches in the world are the ones who can adapt and customize their programming to fit the specific needs (be it injury history, emotional and physical needs, level of commitment) of the individual athlete, rather than sticking to one set program that every athlete must fit into or bust.

But what about those aspects of training that don’t directly relate to an athlete’s physical condition on any given day? An athlete’s motivation, their drive to push themselves and succeed, living up to your expectations, is directly related to their mental, emotional, social, and cognitive development—and how a coach navigates those factors during training directly determines how well they perform.

Generally speaking, people are a combination of human emotion at any one time. It’s our job as coaches to find out what makes them tick and push those buttons. This allows you to gain their trust and increase their level of effort, which will only help your training programs become more effective.

Being more mindful of the impact of different individual’s personality types, attitudes, behaviors, and drivers can help you to mold your coaching to the individual and the individual situation.

ATHLETES

Athletes: what motivates you? Your drive to not just succeed, but to excel, is going to come down to your internal and external motivations staying balanced, working in tandem to push you to new heights. Your love of the game (your internal motivation) should pair with dreams of potential awards, scholarships or publicity (external motivations). While striving for that Player of the Year distinction or headlines in the local paper are fantastic motivators, your pure enjoyment and satisfaction from playing the great game of football should be paramount. Decide now whether you’re willing to focus on the process—practices, time in the weight room, film study—rather than just the outcome, win or lose. As a player, you will find you have increased confidence in your abilities if you focus on the process and use external motivators as a bonus.

MOTIVATING PLAYERS

Coaches: never forget that you’re coaching people, not robots. You must understand and know your players in order to properly motivate them. You also need to have the flexibility to color outside the lines of your precisely prepared spreadsheet workouts.

This understanding begins with a proper knowledge of how, exactly, we take in and process new information.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LEARNING

When developing a program, you must always account for the four stages of learning that every human goes through:

Unconscious Incompetence

This is the starting point for everyone. At this stage (typically during freshman year), your athlete is taught the benefits and the importance of the skill and/or exercises they will be learning. Prior to this point, they may not be aware of these skills/exercises, and may not even appreciate their own deficiencies in this area. Until this lack of awareness is overcome, no progress can be made.

Conscious Incompetence

This will typically take place during sophomore year. The athlete gains a level of appreciation towards the skill and/or exercise they’re being taught, usually by experiencing some failure on their way to progressing to the level of skill required for competence.

Conscious Competence

This is where the bulk of your efforts take place. During junior year, the athlete can reliably perform the skill and/or exercise, but requires a great deal focus, concentration, and hard work in order to perform. Without proper concentration, and proper conditioning, the skill or exercise is still difficult or impossible for them to reliably perform.

Unconscious Competence

By this stage, the athlete has practiced enough, and been put through enough situations using the skills/exercises being taught, that using them becomes second nature. There is little to no concentration required to perform the skill. While some athletes never reach this point, this presents an achievable target goal for senior year.

This is a somewhat simplistic and linear way of describing these four stages. It is intended only to illustrate the slow burn process you must go through as a coach during the early high school years.

COACHING PROGRESSION AND THE FOUR STAGES

Now that you’ve read about the four stages—which should seem familiar to you, if you have any prior experience coaching athletes—it’s time to talk specifics. How do these stages apply to one’s coaching philosophies; how do you program for these developmental categories?

1. Do not overwhelm your incoming freshman.

The weight room can be an intimidating place for incoming freshman. While modern athletes are beginning training younger and younger, this does not prepare them for the intensity of a full team lift in the varsity weight room. Focus on communication, encouragement, and enrichment, and avoid putting them in situations where they are immediately called upon to perform above their level.

2. Do not overcoach your freshman and sophomores.

One of the biggest issues seen with Youth Sports Specialization is parent coaching—which can be at once overwhelming and inconsistent, teaching low self-confidence and bad habits. Add to it an overemphasis on winning at a young age, and you’ll find your younger players cannot think for themselves. Therefore, choose exercises that are safe and create an environment for the athlete to learn.

For example, the Deadlift. Do not allow a first- or second-year player (who you have yet to see lift and therefore cannot properly assess) to deadlift a heavy load from the floor during his first workout. This is for two reasons: 1) Because it is obviously dangerous, but also 2) Embarrassing a player in front of his peers or risking injury can crush his confidence.

Remember, emotional security is a big part of learning in the early years of high school. Put your younger players in a position to succeed with a PVC or light Barbell RDL and a Good Morning series.

Taking that as our example, this builds up your athlete’s emotional and physical strength because:

The danger of the exercise is very low because the weight is lower and easy to grab.

It creates emotional security, because it can be performed away from the platforms if necessary.

By having the athlete stand directly above the kettlebell or dumbbell, it allows them the freedom to tinker with body positions and angles. This keeps the need for cues minimal and allows for encouragement on what they are doing correct.

Positive progressions like this (as opposed to asking your players to do something they are not ready to do) provide the building blocks for building a relationship with your players.

3. Remember that you are coaching visual learners.

Your players grew up online, taught by YouTube and Instagram videos. Demonstrating the exercise for them yourself, or else having them watch a video of proper technique, is very beneficial in the early stages. Keep your verbal cues to a minimum and allow your athlete the freedom to learn by doing.

4. Stay positive (most of the time).

I remember reading a story about famed basketball coach Phil Jackson talking about the best ratio of specific, truthful positive praise to specific, constructive criticism that coaches should use with their players. Jackson says the ideal ratio is 5:1 (five positives to each correction), though he admits that his ratio with his players was closer to 3:1.

Jackson continued to say, Players often hear only the corrections and can become frustrated or angry at themselves and their coaches. It is a constant battle for coaches to stay positive and find new ways to get their players to hear and accept the positives so that they stay open to the occasional need for correction.

Put simply: if you are constantly yelling at your players, your voice becomes dull to their ears—they start tuning you out. Get your players’ attention by raising your voice only at opportune times for greater effect.

SELF-DISCOVERY

The principle of self-discovery—what some call a light bulb moment—is incredibly important to the growth of an athlete. An athlete who is allowed to learn from failure (safely, of course) will learn lifelong lessons in the weight room about themselves, their strengths, and their limitations. Guided discovery and experimental learning are critical elements in the discussion of motor learning behavior. As Coach Brett Bartholomew once said, "The job is to prepare the athlete for the path, not the path for the athlete.

TRAINING MODELS

The following training model gives a better look at the developmental phases players go through. Each model breaks down the physical and emotional traits of your athletes. Again, the more you understand your athletes, the better you can motivate your players.

THE LONG-TERM ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT (LTAD) MODEL

Active Start. Until age 6.

FUNdamentals. From ages 6 to 9 (in boys) and 6 to 8 (in girls).

Learn to Train. From ages 8 to 11 (in girls) and 9 to 12 (in boys), or until the onset of the growth spurt.

Train to Train. The ages that define this stage for boys and girls are based on the onset and duration of the growth spurt, which is generally from ages 11 to 15 (for girls) and 12 to 16 (for boys).

Train to Compete. In the competitive stream, high-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round.

Train to Win. Elite athletes with identified talent enter this stage, pursuing the most intense training suitable for producing international winning performances.

Active for Life. Young athletes can enter this stage at essentially any age following the acquisition of physical literacy. For high- performance athletes, this stage represents the transition from a competitive career to lifelong physical activity.

TRAIN TO TRAIN AND TRAIN TO COMPETE

The two development levels we focus on in this book are the Train to Train and Train to Compete stages. The Train to Train level refers to your first- and second-year players. The Train to Compete is your third- and fourth-year players on varsity teams.

Train to Train Key Points

Focus more on skill training and physical development and less on trying to win

Focus on building the proper process vs. stressing the outcome

Have a little fun and allow for socialization, to avoid future burnout

Emphasize interpersonal skills, teamwork, and communication skills

Concentrate on the process as opposed to the result of a competition; this leads to better development

Train to Compete Key Points

This stage is about building on the Train to Train phase

Player can either choose to specialize in football or continue to play a second sport

High-volume and high-intensity training begins to occur year-round

Athletes follow a more consistent, year-round training schedule

More emphasis on competition

Participation in showcase and college camps

THE NSCA TEN PILLARS FOR SUCCESSFUL LONG-TERM ATHLETIC DEVELOPMENT

Long-term athletic development pathways should accommodate for the highly individualized and non-linear nature of the growth and development of youth.

Youth of all ages, abilities and aspirations should engage in long-term athletic development programs that promote both physical fitness and psychosocial well-being.

All youth should be encouraged to enhance physical fitness from early childhood, with a primary focus on motor skill and muscular strength development.

Long-term athletic development pathways should encourage an early sampling approach for youth that promotes and enhances a broad range of motor skills.

Health and well-being of the child should always be the central tenet of long-term athletic development programs.

Youth should participate in physical conditioning that helps reduce the risk of injury to ensure their on-going participation in long-term athletic development programs.

Long-term athletic development programs should provide all youth with a range of training modes to enhance both health- and skill-related components of fitness.

Practitioners should use relevant monitoring and assessment tools as part of a long-term athletic development strategy.

Practitioners working with youth should systematically progress and individualize training programs for successful long-term athletic development.

Qualified professionals and sound pedagogical approaches are fundamental to the success of long-term athletic development programs.

PART II:

NUTRITION

Sports nutrition is the new frontier in improved sports performance at the high school level. The importance of sports nutrition as a field, and how impactful it can be on an athlete’s recovery and physical development, has trickled down from the professional and collegiate level to apply to high school athletes. Proper nutrition is vital for any aspiring championship team and every single athlete involved. As Vince Lombardi once said, The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. In other words, a player who trains hard but does not eat like a champion is resigning himself to mediocrity, never quite reaching his full potential. A player who trains hard and does eat like a champion, however, sets himself up for success—because everything he does is working towards his goals.

An athlete’s ability to recover and grow from their workouts is directly related to their nutritional intake. Nutrition also directly affects your ability to lose body fat and/or gain muscle. In this section, we’ll be going over everything you need to know to set your athletes on the right nutritional track for victory and personal records.

No one has more control over an athlete’s nutrition than the athlete himself. There is very little you are in complete control of, especially when playing a team sport, but taking your nutrition seriously is one of the biggest factors in your pursuit of athletic excellence.

NUTRITION BASICS FOR YOUNGER ATHLETES

On the field and off it, nutrition is key! For you to maximize your performance and recover quickly having consistent good eating habits will bring your conditioning, speed and strength performances to the next level.

Choosing the correct foods in the right proportions and at the right times can make all the difference between success and defeat. A properly fueled and hydrated athlete is one that is primed to perform at their best while minimizing the chances of fatigue, injury and dehydration.

Not only is nutrition both preparative and preventative, nutrition also provides the critical trigger for translating practice and weight training into increases in strength, power, speed and agility.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRAINING AND NUTRITION