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.

» ALSO SEE: Tips to effectively manage a crisis

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!

The post Advice on starting a strength & conditioning program appeared first on Coach and Athletic Director.