Going to start a new series over the next few weeks where we will look at some of the hidden pitfalls within the sports performance world. You see as a professional sports performance coach we see things through a different lens then an athlete or the parent of an athlete would. It is a professional lens that, in my case, has been developed and fine tuned through a college curriculum at a Masters level, 13 years of coaching experience and over the last 7 years, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, searching for new and innovative ways to improve upon the services we provide.
The thought of educating athletes and parents by MOCKING what is out there and then presenting what we do to change what is typically done stemmed from a post on my personal page yesterday. I shared an article about Baldwin High School in Pittsburgh, Pa because they recently hired a strength & conditioning professional to oversee the development of their athletes/students. Here is the article, http://triblive.com/…/11115483-…/baldwin-wietholder-athletes.
I put on my "sassy pants" and shared the link with the comment
"OMG with an actual professional running the HS weight room who will the assistant football coach give his program that he did in college to?"
It was an interesting experiment as the only people who engaged with the post were looking through a lens similar to mine. Do athletes and parents see the downfall of the typical high school weightroom situation of having an assistant football coach giving all the athletes that come into the room his program that he did in college? The answer is probably not.
Let's bring things back locally. A few years ago I was about to start working with a local football player who was slated to be the starting quarterback at _________ High School here in Erie. The kid didn't show for his first session! After about 10 minutes I received a call from the athlete and he said his coach told him if he trained outside of his high school he would not be the starting quarterback once the season started.
I called the coach! He stated that "we have been lucky enough to have former Division I football players come back to our staff as coaches and we are running a top notch Division I strength & conditioning program here at our high school." I'm sure the players and the parents really looked at that through a positive lens. How did I look at that? "Not so fast my friend"... College football strength & conditioning programs are designed for athletes 18-23 who typically have a training age of 3-5 years under their belt. High school weightrooms will have 14 year old kids who have never lifted a weight before. That is like letting your 5 year old watch The Dark Knight... they are going to be laying on the floor weeping (won't make that mistake again). A "top notch" Division I S&C program is not appropriate developmentally, in any way, at the high school level.
The key to developing any program is to meet each athlete where they are from a developmental standpoint and just as importantly from a movement standpoint (this will be covered in a future post). It is also important to mention that looking through the lens of a professional you must realize that the world of strength & conditioning has evolved more in the last 5-7 years then it had in its entire existence. New science, new techniques, new ways of coaching, new equipment; it has all changed the way things are done. I played Division I college football in 2003, the program that I did, which was very progressive at the time, is a dinosaur today!!
We are excited to debunk some of the myths and fallacies within the sports performance industry over the next few weeks and we hope you follow along as we will always continue to#ChangeTheWaySportsPerformanceIsDone
The thought of educating athletes and parents by MOCKING what is out there and then presenting what we do to change what is typically done stemmed from a post on my personal page yesterday. I shared an article about Baldwin High School in Pittsburgh, Pa because they recently hired a strength & conditioning professional to oversee the development of their athletes/students. Here is the article, http://triblive.com/…/11115483-…/baldwin-wietholder-athletes.
I put on my "sassy pants" and shared the link with the comment
"OMG with an actual professional running the HS weight room who will the assistant football coach give his program that he did in college to?"
It was an interesting experiment as the only people who engaged with the post were looking through a lens similar to mine. Do athletes and parents see the downfall of the typical high school weightroom situation of having an assistant football coach giving all the athletes that come into the room his program that he did in college? The answer is probably not.
Let's bring things back locally. A few years ago I was about to start working with a local football player who was slated to be the starting quarterback at _________ High School here in Erie. The kid didn't show for his first session! After about 10 minutes I received a call from the athlete and he said his coach told him if he trained outside of his high school he would not be the starting quarterback once the season started.
I called the coach! He stated that "we have been lucky enough to have former Division I football players come back to our staff as coaches and we are running a top notch Division I strength & conditioning program here at our high school." I'm sure the players and the parents really looked at that through a positive lens. How did I look at that? "Not so fast my friend"... College football strength & conditioning programs are designed for athletes 18-23 who typically have a training age of 3-5 years under their belt. High school weightrooms will have 14 year old kids who have never lifted a weight before. That is like letting your 5 year old watch The Dark Knight... they are going to be laying on the floor weeping (won't make that mistake again). A "top notch" Division I S&C program is not appropriate developmentally, in any way, at the high school level.
The key to developing any program is to meet each athlete where they are from a developmental standpoint and just as importantly from a movement standpoint (this will be covered in a future post). It is also important to mention that looking through the lens of a professional you must realize that the world of strength & conditioning has evolved more in the last 5-7 years then it had in its entire existence. New science, new techniques, new ways of coaching, new equipment; it has all changed the way things are done. I played Division I college football in 2003, the program that I did, which was very progressive at the time, is a dinosaur today!!
We are excited to debunk some of the myths and fallacies within the sports performance industry over the next few weeks and we hope you follow along as we will always continue to#ChangeTheWaySportsPerformanceIsDone
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