At T.L. Hanna High School, we have a 7,300 square foot weight room. We utilize Williams Strength equipment and have eight half racks and eight double racks. I train most of our high school athletes daily. I dedicate much of my time working closely with football players and staff, helping prepare the team for competition year-round.

I was blessed to be the first strength and conditioning coach at T.L. Hanna. My advice on starting a strength and conditioning program from the ground up is the same advice I would have given myself almost 10 years ago. The first thing I would do is meet with all the different sport coaches. Without the sport coaches’ buy-in, you have no athletes to train. You might have participation in the beginning, but if your vision and theirs do not line up, you will see a decline in their athletes’ participation. Get the coaches’ feedback on what they want to see in training. Listen to them, see their perspective, and if it does not align, let them know your concerns from a safety or philosophical standpoint. Let them pick one of their favorite exercises to include in the training program. Inclusion like this will go further than you think. This will create a feeling of ownership in the program.

Execute Your Plan

Come up with a plan that works for the coaches and the athletes. Once the relationship is developed with the coaches, reach out to them every week or so by providing updates on their athletes. The athlete wants to make their sport coach happy because the coach controls playing time. If the head coaches buy into your training program, this will keep the line of communication open between you, the coaches, and the athletes. The strength program is only as good as the commitment from the sport coaches. In my experience, you may not have 100% buy-in from all coaches, but never give up on them. Do your best to keep “striking the stone” with them and trying to develop a relationship. Remember, we are in the relationship-building business with both players and coaches!

When starting a new strength and conditioning program, you may not know the athletes or coaches. I would start with the K.I.S.S method (Keep it Simple Silly). I would do my best to evaluate the athletes in the beginning with basic exercises. How well can they squat body weight? How well can they do push-ups and pull-ups? You can build your program off how well they can perform these, and this will give you a good rule of thumb of who is ready to progress to the barbell. In the beginning, the exercises might not look as crisp as they should. There is a bell curve in all things, especially the weight room. I used to think I could fix all things in one training session. When it comes to exercise technique, that is not the case. It takes time to develop some of the movement patterns in the weight room. Be consistent in how you teach it, give direction, and stick to it. Do not use different coaching techniques in each training session. One of the most important things we can do as coaches for our athletes is to be consistent. This will benefit you greatly down the road!

The Hanna Way

One thing we do at Hanna is keep all of our athletes in one area of training during the session. Example: We keep our athletes at a fixed location with the equipment they will use for that training session. This reduces the amount of time an athlete has to be distracted and drift off task in our weight room. This has helped us tremendously. Another thing I would recommend is keeping your weight room clean and organized. When I first got to Hanna, I implemented a “Jacket Order” standard, closely linked to the T.L. Hanna Yellow Jackets mascot. “Jacket Order” is all weights are returned to the original location, organized, and wiped clean after each session. Leave it better than you found it! There is an old saying, “many hands make light work,” however, it teaches the athletes to clean up after themselves and to take pride in our weight room. In closing, find out what works best for you.

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No training tool, book, or advice beats having experience. Everyone’s situation is different. You have to figure out the space you have to work in, the equipment you have, and how long you will have your athletes for a training session to solidify a training plan. Set the plan and work the plan!

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Wareham High School unveiled the unified strength and conditioning team coached by the school’s occupational therapist, Marybeth Kiernan, who also helps with the school’s unified basketball and track teams.

Unified sports is a Special Olympics program that gives kids with special needs the opportunity to compete in team sports.

A recent article in Wareham Week detailed the unified strength and conditioning team and what it has meant to the athletes. Below is an excerpt from the Wareham Week article.

Adding the sport to the unified athletics department was important to Kiernan because she said she wanted kids to have a way to stay active in between basketball and track season.

“My goal was to help kids create healthy lives, and I accomplished that,” Kiernan said. “Also, the ability to be with the kids twice a week was great.”

The team did not just give kids an opportunity to be healthy; Kiernan said they excelled at it. At the conclusion of their nine-week season, the Vikings were the number one ranked unified strength and conditioning team in the state.

The strength and conditioning competitions looked different than most other sports. Kiernan explained how it worked: they would take initial benchmark measurements on a variety of exercises like running in the hallway and wall sits, and she would track the kids’ progress and report the numbers to Special Olympics. The teams that showed the most progress were ranked higher.

“When we first started, I would have kids run in the hallway, and most of them walked, but by the end of it, most of them ran the entire way,” Kiernan said. “I also increased the number of times they did it so they were running for longer periods of time.”

The ranking at the end of the season was not the only success. Kiernan said many kids experienced near unprecedented levels of growth and gained confidence throughout their nine weeks together.

“I would be handing out weights and the kids would say ‘I can’t do this it’s too heavy’ and within no time at all they were doing things they didn’t think they could do,” Kiernan said. “Some of them hold a plank for a minute and they never thought they would be able to do that. They learned how to do hard things and keep going.”

Bill and Shelly Mobilia saw a lot of physical growth for their son Bryson, who was diagnosed with low muscle tone.

“He’s slimming down, and it’s also calmed him down,” Bill said. “It’s always been difficult to go for a walk or go hiking because of his low muscle tone, so this has been a huge help.”

To read the full article from Wareham Week, click here. 

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Today, social media offers instant access to their wisdom. Real-time, digital video analysis of athletes’ movements, has replaced camcorder footage and the naked eye. 

This ease of access to knowledge has contributed to significant advances in our field. Like many strength coaches, I enjoy the wow factor of eye-popping feats of athleticism in a shared video. But in this flood of information, which often focuses on results over process, young coaches still need to take the time to build a sound foundation of program layout and design. 

Early in my coaching career, I was blessed to work with Terry Hoeppner, who often said, “Have a plan. Work the plan. Plan for the unexpected.” In other words, preparation is king. The purpose of this article is to help young coaches plan out their core framework, an organized programming vision that will help them filter information, and create more consistent programs, that will equip their athletes for a better chance of sustainable success. 

The Plan: Macro, Meso & Micro-Cycles (Vision, Communication, Action) 

I often talk with young strength coaches who scribble down some novel ideas that don’t capture a broader plan of attack. Then, once you get into the daily grind, the larger vision gets lost. I recently read an article written in The Daily Coach entitled, “The Biggest mistake with coaches is they wing it.” 

Below, I lay out a general plan that helps coaches avoid the temptation to wing it and organize information in such a way that preserves the larger vision for their program. While my perspective is that of a strength and conditioning coach who works with team staff, this model is applicable to other stakeholders, such as dual-position coaches at any level. 

Macrocycle – Overview of the Plan (giving form to the Vision)

• Meet with sport staff to establish goals for the athletic calendar year. Think broadly about where to place certain types of work, marking out big events. A theme or mantra can help keep primary goals front of mind.
• Map out the general thoughts for training blocks/phases that have their own goals (e.g. 8 -12 weeks summer block of hypertrophy and/or strength, with general running). 

Mesocycle – Closer look at Training blocks/Phases: (Summer, Winter, Pre- and Post-Season)

• Break down larger phases into manageable units (such as 4-6 weeks) that have their own goals (e.g. Amount of work volume, conditioning, recovery, mobility, stability, etc.)
• Plan for special equipment needed to accomplish these goals (e.g. Special bars or Tech etc.)
• Calculate how many training days per week, what time in the day-alongside length of training session. Also account for pre- vs. post-practice training, testing dates, etc.
• Maintain focus on the larger vision through theme weeks, motivational talks about persistence, nutritional needs, etc. 

Microcycle: Focused intention – (The Fun cycle, “Let’s go train”)

• Build the actual daily worksheets, with session goals, individualized training & weekly evaluation, proper order of exercises to manage fatigue, motivational talk to remind athletes of the vision, etc.
• Plan the use of spaces and equipment to limit bottlenecks and establish proper order of exercises 
• Account for setup and breakdown of the facility, nutrition product distribution, and other logistical factors
• Facilitate the session (Tempo, energy, etc.)
• Create consistent training habits through skill instruction, correction cues to watch for, etc.

The Training Sheet

In this field, there is such an interesting marriage of science and creativity. The human body can take multiple routes as it adapts and changes. This allows for a wide array of training strategies.  Your training sheet can have a variety of looks and will evolve as you set and achieve goals. 

I have a few styles of training sheets for different needs, but my primary practice is to make a 3-6-week plan (Meso) that guides weekly sheets for the athletes. A weekly sheet allows for more flexibility to make changes as circumstances arise, such as injuries, changes in practice plans, and faster or slower development than expected. 

I’m very tactile and find multiple benefits to folders and paper sheets. I want the athletes invested mentally, so I like to leave notes, personalized to each of them. Further, the lift sheet is a journal. I encourage athletes to jot down how certain exercises feel, and their thoughts about progressing. I then glean the information, and can further customize their workouts. 

Figure 1 provides an example of a single training session; the result of how larger goals filter down into the details such as lift progressions and the flow of the weight room. 

“If it’s important you’ll do it every day, If it’s not important don’t do it at all” Dan Gable 

Hard work is essential, but training sessions should have daily focused goals that give purpose and direction to that work. Goal-driven weekly training habits create consistency, which creates progress toward the larger vision. In short, if it’s on the program, then it has a purpose. Teach the way you want it done, don’t add fluff, and don’t compromise your standards. 

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The figure below illustrates how you don’t always have to produce a whole new plan for each athlete. You can stay grounded in goals but create subtle changes to planned exercises to account for growth (progression) or inefficiency (regression). 

In closing, I realize this isn’t a mind-blowing topic in training, and it only scratches the surface of these topics but I do hope it gets strength coaches thinking about how careful preparation can lead to your best training cycles yet.

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The study compared the results of 20 weeks of resistance training in two groups, one with continuous training and one with a 10-week break midway.

The study found that the results for maximum strength and muscle size development were similar in both groups. According to the researchers, the equal progress in both groups was due to the fact that maximum strength and especially muscle size quickly returned to pre-break levels when training was resumed.

“During the first few weeks after the break, progress was very rapid and after only five weeks of re-training, the pre-break level had already been reached,” says Eeli Halonen from the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, who is writing his doctoral thesis on the effects of the training break.

“Muscle memory” will next be studied at the cellular and molecular level

The phenomenon where the previous level of muscle size is quickly regained after a break is termed “muscle memory”.

“The physiological mechanisms of muscle memory are not yet fully understood,” said senior researchers Juha Hulmi and Juha Ahtiainen, “and our next step is to study in more depth the cellular and molecular changes in muscles that could potentially explain this phenomenon.”

Maximum strength is better preserved than muscle size

The study also found that maximum strength was better preserved during the break than muscle size.

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