Building a strength and conditioning program
I'm currently trying to revamp my high school team's strength and conditioning program. I have a breakdown of Hofstra's S&C program (mostly based on plyometrics) from a conference I went to a couple years ago, and I have some information that I gleaned from MASE training, as well as exercises/philosophies that I've drawn from programs I've been in and magazines and such.
Does anybody have any other suggestions for materials (books, videos, etc.) that they've used that have been helpful? I'm particularly concerned with getting our kids to be faster. We have a pretty good team because we're fundamentally sound, but we need to be faster and, obviously, some additional strength would be helpful, too.
Gittelson Pizza.
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a couple private speed and agility training that market themselves primarily towards high school athletes. Here is a link to one.
http://www.parisischool.com/trainerfinder/websites/60063/locations/inde…
maybe there is someone like that in your area that you could talk to. of course you'd have to talk to them as a potential pipeline rather than a competitor.
Thanks. There is one not too far away from here. I might check into it.
I would guess that he would send you some info if you asked him. He seems pretty open about sharing info.
I haven't. I've found that major college coaches often have a) too much going on or b) too big of egos to respond to high school coaches. This isn't to say that Barwis wouldn't respond to my individual request, but I wouldn't bet on it. I've thought about trying to get in touch with him or his staff but I haven't tried yet. I won't be surprised if I don't hear anything back.
if I remember correctly I believe Barwis has some sort of training manual that you can get for $80; it was mentioned on The Fort awhile ago.
weighted sleds.
probably mentioned in all the books and shit you already have, but if it's not, weighted sleds.
as for materials, we used the Bigger Faster Stronger folks towards the end of HS. The training itself was nothing earth-shattering (oly lifts, modified 5x5 style programming, sprint work, and plyos were the basis) but they did come and do a two day seminar on form and implementation for all the sports teams in the school which might be worthwhile if you want to try and get the other programs involved.
We just started using weighted sleds last spring. That's how far behind the times we are. That was my first year at this school, so you can imagine how much work is left to be done to get this S&C program on the right track...
Just p90x their asses and be done with it.
That's probably not a bad idea.
and I thought I was in pretty good shape...
Did you like it. I'm debating on getting it because once I graduate I lose access to our gym on campus and we have the best gym in the area. I don't want to pay 50/month to the other place either.
Edit: I work out almost daily so I'm looking for something fairly hard.
I didn't buy the program, nor did I finish it. My cousin got into it and I started with him but because of distance, work schedules, and my overall lack of dedication/love of food, I trailed off after about 11 days.
I will say this... the whole thing is EXTREMELY well planned. If it says drink 9 oz. of water exactly four minutes into Heels to Heaven, DRINK IT. It kicks your ass, and from both my experience and my cousin's, I've never seen a workout that consistently gives you muscle burn long after you've started a new routine. You don't need that much stuff-- some bands, dumbells, a few other things. Also, you have to truly dedicate yourself to the diet, because that's a huge part of it. And my undoing. But if you love the pain of the gym, I'd recommend it (Ab Ripper-- ugh).
And be careful with aerobic activities prior to the workout-- I thought I was gonna die.
I've thought about getting P90X too. I don't put too much trust in a lot of those exercise infomercials, but that one looks legit. I just don't know if I want to pay the ~$100 for it.
Craigslist or eBay it...a lot cheaper! Or do what I did, find someone who has it and burn the discs.
I posted this earlier another thread.
this might not help you much since you need a gym for the workout, but...
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=menshealth&channel=fitnes…
If you actually do all 300 reps with no rest in between it is hard. I can never do it because I always end up talking to my friend.
Also I never do the same workout for over two weeks because the body develops memory and it gets easy.
Check out www.gymjones.com if you want to get ideas for interesting full body workouts
"Also I never do the same workout for over two weeks because the body develops memory and it gets easy."
as always with exercise, you gotta do what works for you, but that statement is kinda inaccurate ... I do the same workouts for months at a time but they don't get "easy" because you always try to add more iron or more reps.
But it is good to switch it up a little now and then. For instance, I'll do military presses for a couple weeks, then I'll switch to dumbbell shoulder presses. One week I'll do upright rows with a barbell, the next I'll use the cable. Or seated calf raises, then standing. Little things like that seem to really help me.
I played football in college and found that the Olympic expercises really increased my speed. Work outs that include the hang clean (both dumbbell and bar) amoung others really help! Anything that involves more than one movement is always going to be good. One thing that is often over looked when it comes to speed is the core. Using bungi (spelling?) cords while doing simple football moves also helps a lot.
Yeah...budget issues are a problem, too, so we can't buy too much new equipment. I have thought about just buying some bungee cords with my own money. But thanks for the ideas.
and RR has his spring coaches CLINIC at which barwis and the GBMW guys are present. You WILL be able to make contact there.
Try yoga for athletes. It will build core strength and tendon strength along with improved agility. About a 1/2 hour a day 3-4 times a week.
Also, bands. Strength bands are money for young kids still growing.
*One last thing that I heard was being tried a few years ago was some sort of speed treadmill that forced you to run at an accelerated rate (faster than you could otherwise) and it had some safety device as well. But I heard it was being tested on HS kids in Texas to get them to run faster than they usually would. Don't know a name or anything...sorry.
I call that "standing behind the fat kid with a taser". He'll run faster than ever.
I played football in college and we did those types of workouts for speed...seriously the hardest thing I have ever done. You literally run on a tredmill for 10 seconds at a time and I would puke evertime. They put you in a harness hung from the ceiling and then blast the incline and speed so it is going at like 16 mph and you jump on and run for 10 seconds...trust me you need the harnest because after about 7 seconds you are about to fall off.
Never played football, but played hockey. Started doing yoga last year and became much quicker and flexible almost immediately. I don't know how you could do it with a whole team or anything, but try.
Joe is great at designing "block periodization" schemes.....very effective in building speed and strength...his articles on "Westside for Skinny Bastards" are extremely useful in becoming a better athlete/individual!!
http://www.defrancostraining.com/index.php
check out his "articles" and "ask Joe" features!!
Parisi is also a good place to get info, you could also visit "elitefts.com" for more help, they have various experts posting on strength training!!
ironaddicts.com is good too, but that's more bodybuilding oriented; but bodybuilding through powerlifting and real strength training as opposed to the less applicable to real sports complicated splits and such favored by many bb'ers
I was a varsity athlete at Michigan and have stayed in reasonable shape in the years after school. In the past couple years, I let is slide. I really wanted to do a program that would make a major change. A good friend of mine - former linebacker under Spurrier at UF swore to me that P90X was amazing. Skeptically I bought it and started it. I am now in the second month. This program kicks your ass, and it works just like they say it does. I am well on my way to being in the best shape I have been in years. It incorporates plyometrics, flexibility, balance, strength, and cardio.
Any thoughts on the correct age to start a S&C program? I have a 12-year-old son that has been doing push-ups regularly, but no other strength workouts to date. He would obviously need a lot of supervision before he started doing anything strength work other than body-weight exercises, but it is safe for him to start and what exercises would make the most sense for him to do?
As a 12-year-old, your son probably doesn't have the hormonal makeup for any great strength gains. He should not be strength training with weights anywhere near his max. At that age, if he has the attention span, he should probably be working on endurance, speed, and agility training. He could also do sport-specific movements to improve muscle memory.
But as far as weightlifting goes, it should just be high reps at a low weight to get his muscles conditioned for the heavier weights he'll use when he becomes 16 and 17 and 18 to start building muscle. At that age, it's probably most important that he just takes time to condition himself and - most of all - learn the basics of whatever sport(s) he wants to play.
Thanks, Magnus.
Search this term and you will be surprised at positive attitdes toward pretty much universal. If you are careful and build slowly there is a lot of benefit to early weight training. It was suggested to me by a HS football coach so I started my son at age 10. We are two years in now and he is scary strong. I started an SC program for all of our pop warner jr. midgets (11,12,13) and many of the kids achieved 50% strength gains in just 3-6 wks; we finished 7-3(3rd)whereas last year we were 1-8. In season I switched my son (we do exact same workout which is now only a little suboptimal for me (142lb, he is 124lb and just turned 13) to 2x/wk machine workout because football practices. We did every machine in the gym (30), lifeforce, paramount, and hammer strength (best). We were max'ed out on 8 machines..180lb triceps lift, 395lb leg press... Of course we built up to this over 2yrs starting with 15-25reps, one set, machines only. We did a strength freeweight routine from "New Rules of Lifting" last summer with good result. We just switched back to free weights and I'm trying to build a mainly sports routine (explosive power) but am now also creeping a little into body building (arms only- for looks). Following Barwis, we start routine with snatch (I know he doesn't do snatch but we like it) 75lb, and power clean 95lb. We just started so I am keeping weights low until we are really comfortable. Charley won 2/3 of his wrestling matches yesterday (3rd meet ever) and looks great in his wrestling gig, whatever they call it (well defined and nice V/lats). One doctors son worked out with us in Jr. Midget program and had been lifting for a couple years already. I ask every doctor I run across what they think and all have been postitive, with caveat that single rep max's should be avoided until age 15. It's been GREAT for his self confidence too as many other kids are better athletes, but everyone knows he is strongest and fastest kid in 7th grade...it's something... Phil
Thanks, Phil. For wrestling, I highly recommend pull-ups--they are great for lats, biceps, and grip strength and core.
Do you think that machines were the best way to start with your son? And what did you do to build up to the Olympic lifts? Or did you just jump right into them, but with light weights?
This is the term, when searched, turns up a lot of positive info. My son and I started with machines. It had been more than 25yrs since I had been in a gym and I was scared and felt way out of place (now we're gym rats). Machines are far safer I think than free weights. For instance Charley gets in good position for a olympic snatch, then instead of leading the lift with his legs, he sticks his butt up in the air and proceeds to pull the weights up with his lower back. I yell at him and he has a good lift or two, then back to bad form. So, I think for sure start with machines for a couple of months. We do snatch, power clean, pullups, dips, legups, squats (on sliding rack "smith machine" I think they call it), bench, hanging situps, back/side crunches holding 25lbs, a midsection twisting machine (for baseball hitting), then a bunch of (3 exercises each type , machines and dumbells) exercises for bicep/tricep building (for looks). A new principal of lifting is changing the stimulus ofen so we'll probably do this for a couple mo. then switch to something else. FYI, I went to my first yoga class ever last night and left drenched in sweat and I'm sore as hell today. It's cool.
For the p90x, my roommate has it and has been doing it for about 8 months. The dude who made it is an evil, sadistic s.o.b. The great thing is, while just doing bench presses and squats will help your team somewhat, there are a lot of muscles involved in playing football. p90x covers ALL of them. Plus has a stretching and yoga regiment which would help agility. I know you're skeptical, but its far cheaper than buying a bunch of new shit that isn't going to help you, so i say give it a try. Unless you have a whole bunch of justin borens on your team, in which case they will quit after the first day citing loss of family values.
Fast and Furious Football, the site where a bunch of people got the WVU playbooks when RR was hired, has a bunch of schools' strength and conditioning plans.
http://fastandfuriousfootball.com/freeplaybooks/
It was mentioned earlier by karpodiem, but Barwis does sell his training regimen. I went to see Barwis speak at a Glazier Football Coaches Clinic in Grand Rapids and he was selling his manual for $80. I was psyched by his speech and I bought one.
It goes in depth about nutrition, stretching, weight lifting for speed and line athletes, speed and agility work, plyometrics, core training, and injury prevention. I remember him saying that if you want one and are unable to get ahold of him you can try Chris Allen, his top assistant. I don't know where to find their email addresses though.
I don't know if you do this, but whatever plan you develop try and have the kids keep track of their progress. At my school they'd hand out little sheets that we'd fill out keeping our progress, and the coaches could monitor it too. It worked nicely if kids kept up with it and made sure to keep track.
The Strength Shoe
Mike Jones' dad and Lo Wood's dad doing some football related training on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d04KFW_N63I
Kettlebells are very effective. Google them or go to YouTube and find some videos. They are quick producers and work both the core and cardio.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:41 AM ^
Magnus you can email me, i can point you in the right direction. but i need to know where you are comming from, what you have to work with etc.
where do you coach? what is your possition?
also i did a liittle intro into our program last year over on three and out that you are welcome to check out...
one thing is most college coaches that i have run into from big time programs, are more than happy to tell you anything you want, you just have to ask, and go to them.