Over the course of my coaching career, I have had the privilege of being a strength & conditioning coach and a football coach in a duel-role capacity for over 13 of the 15 years. I realized a few unique truths when looking back at this duel role. Like Brian Cain has said, nothing is good or bad.... it's always good AND bad.

CONS:

No matter how many hours I put in to my job (it was a lot), I still could never do the best job that I thought I could. I felt when I was in the weight room I cold have been watching film or making recruiting calls and visa-versa. Which brings me to my next point.

The duel-role of strength coach and sport coach contradict each other in every situation. I have wrote about this before. The focus and commitment of the sport coaches must be...

  1. The Program
  2. The Team
  3. The Player

... in that order. I will definitely expand on this concept in a future post. This is such an important rule that more coaches don't realize they are violating. I know I have.

You are put in a bad-spot between the two positions and have to make decision that negatively effect one or the other.

PROS:

I was able to do two things I loved for the majority of my coaching career. This also helped me become more marketable because of an increased skill set and more connections.

With seeing multiple sides of a situation, I was better able to communicate back and forth between assistant sport coaches, interns, athletes, etc. I gained a much more comprehensive perspective and empathy toward both sides.

Most of the Issues Aren't Issues for Most Coaches

Some of the mistakes listed below are averted simply by instituting organized summer training. Division I football and High schools (in most states) have the most ideal situations in terms of Off-Season (Summer) training. For all schools, this is the most important training block of the year.  For DI and High Schools, coaches can still address the physical development of their team and introduce more football specific concepts to ramp-up for camp. For the majority of small colleges, they do not have this option.

Organized and supervised team training in the summer is an NCAA violation for DIII schools and most small colleges do not have the infrastructure to allow for summer classes and employment unless in a metropolitan area.  The bottom line is if you are in a situation where you are handing out summer manuals and if the next time you see that player is when they report for camp; you have some challenges ahead of you.

In my opinion, I fee that strength and conditioning coaches make a few crucial mistakes in training leading up to, and during, fall camp that can place their teams in possible jeopardy. I will admit, I have  been a part of coaching staffs that have made these mistakes and have learned the hard way. The most important question to ask when implementing training or testing is: are we doing this for them or for us? Here are a few mistakes to avoid.

Testing at The Beginning of Fall Camp

There has to be a reason for so many coaches wanting to see performance numbers from all of their players when they report to camp. In my opinion, this is insecurity cloaked as accountability. Coaches want to test the first day of Fall camp for two reasons.

  1. They want to see who was training over the summer.
  2. They want to have some quantifiable data on who is the fastest and strongest on the team.

These are both kind of silly. The main reason is that regardless of what the testing numbers will tell you, as a coach, you are beyond the point of addressing those issues. Rectifying any discrepancies is past the point of improvement. When camp starts, we are in a drastic shift from the physical preparation to the technical-tactical.

Here are a few performance tests commonly seen at the beginning of camp which are usual in 3 different categories.

  1. Speed or Agility Tests
  2. Strength Tests
  3. Conditioning Tests

Sometimes it is a combination of two or all three. Regardless of what test is implemented, three distinct questions.

  1. Why are the results are important for the success of our team?
  2. Are these the best test to predict success on the field?
  3. What do the results of these tests specifically say about our athletes?

If those questions cannot be answered then it would be difficult for me as a coach to justify them.

The only reason a coach would test at the beginning of Fall camp is if they have not seen their athletes over the summer. Even then, not necessary.

Let's talk about each of those first 3 categories of performance testing with possible issues and more suited alternatives.

SPEED & AGILITY

The 40

Ok, testing the 40 in camp may be the dumbest thing coaches do. Not only is this a huge risk for injury, but it is also very taxing on the athlete leading into camp. The fact is, unless you have been supervising the training of your team all summer, you have no idea if your athletes have been training speed at that distance and at the intensity required to be prepared to test their 40 yard dash.

Coaches have to ask, "Why are we testing the 40?" The answer will dictate the alternative, because no matter the answer, it won't justify it.

1. We want to see improvement from the Spring.

There are so many factors that can skew this data. The simple fact that the summer program is drastically different in terms of volume and intention than the winter/ spring program is one issue. Secondly, if you are comparing a program where you as the coach have programmed it, supervised it, and coached the athletes performing it to one written in a manual; you may not be happy with the results. I agree that athletes should be faster when they report to Fall camp than in the Spring, but it begs the question, "What if they're not?" Do you bench them?

2. We want to see how fast our incoming freshman are.

Most of this should be done in recruiting. This is one reason why most staff's want to see a kid play in person as opposed to just film.  Every college coach in America will disregard their high school coaches times. The high school coach is looking to get the kid "that scholly" and it looks good on their program. The good thing is more high school coaches are figuring out that college coaches value game film more than stop watches and the need to embellish is diminishing. Most coaches will have an idea before the player even reports. Between track times (if he's fast, he'll run track unless he is a D1 baseball or lax prospect) or by film (is he a two-stepper). Then again, if you are promoting a freshman based on times, you aren't "getting it" anyway.  That kid could miss his girlfriend and take the midnight train over one text with sad-face emoticons.

3. We want to compare our team speed to previous years.

I feel this is an off-season assignment. Some coaches want to know as a team or a position group, are we faster than last year. This also comes down to. "what if we are, what if we aren't?" The schedule is not going to change and we can't trade for faster players at this point. Put the right guys in the right spots and maximize your athletic ability through scheme.

What to Do Instead?

If you are dead-set on testing some kind of speed or agility the first few days of camp, these may keep your athletes healthier.

Test the 10 electronically. Little bit of a learning curve for new guys but you can still get comparative data and recover for practice easier.

Test the Vertical Jump. Very high correlation to the 40. You can easily see which athletes can produce lower body power. This can also give you a base to measure fluctuations in power during the season.

Test the 5-10-5. This is still a drill that can make coaches nervous. Make sure the athletes are warmed up and you can even implement these in practice. This is still a lot of work for a number that may or may not have a correlation to on-field performance.

If you are beyond testing, but still want to have an idea of where players are in terms of speed, the best strategy is to have these built in to position specific drills.

Special Teams. Every freshman should be on special teams in some capacity at least for the first few days. Nothing will tell you more about who are your fastest guys like lining 10 of them up and run a few kick-offs on air. I realize there is a timing component and not all 10 positions are responsible for running straight ahead. But, you will have all of your fast players on film. You'll figure it out.

Position Specific. Whether it is hoops with d-line, modified bag drills with RBs, or routes with WRs, there are easy ways you can incorporate competitive drills to expose speed (or lack thereof).

 STRENGTH

Squat, Bench, Clean

The big three with  every strength coach and for some reason the standard in strength performance for football. I realize there are some benefits. It is motivational for the older guys and inspiring for the freshman, but putting pads on should be motivation enough and the freshman should be inspiring by your worksets.

There are a few reasons I do not like the traditional strength testing in camp.

Freshman. Why would I test a kid on how much he can squat bench or clean when I don't even know if he knows how to do any of those properly if at all? There is so much to teach with any lift, why would I pre-test them.  Their desire to impress will ultimately lead to embarrassment or injury.  I've seen this too many times. Our freshman didn't even lift with our returners for the first few sessions anyway.

CNS. There is no better way to prepare for two weeks of intense practices like max effort work on highly technical lifts the first day they arrive to camp. Again, what are you going to do with that data.  I have worked for a guy who wanted to move a starter to 3rd string because his clean and squat did not improve from the spring. We didn't take into account the summer job or lack of training facilities. Listen, I am all for holding athletes accountable, but at this point in the yearly cycle, it's time to get down to business. Get your best players on the field.

I am not sure why coaches want this data, but it is a lot of wasted time or resources. Now, coaches still want an idea of where their athletes are and strength coaches would like an idea of their numbers. Here are some more viable options in my opinion.

What to Do Instead?

Auto-regulate your sets. I have written about this several times here and here. This is a great way to accommodate the fluctuations in working maxes.  An easy way to do this is have the working sets set up where they start with doing their previous 3RM for 3-5 reps. If you have less confident in your work-ethic of your team then do the reverse. Have them perform their 5RM for 3reps and auto-reg the sets from there.

Vertical Jump. Again, what better way to test lower body force production than the vertical. This eliminates technique issues and still gives a valid and reliable number.

Measure Velocity. Not as easy to implement due to finances. But this allows you to have a better idea of the force athletes are producing while keep the load somewhat standard based on previous maxes. How fast can you squat 80%? Much faster if I am stronger than I was in the Spring. With VBT becoming more popular, there are more affordable options for a team setting available.

CONDITIONING

This is a always a  hit or miss topic. I have been a part of staffs that have implemented so many different conditioning tests including....

  • 12 minute Run
  • 16 - 110s
  • 4 - 300yd shuttles

One of the most popular conditioning tests is repeat 40s. I love when coaches expect their athletes to run (20) 40yd dashes within 2-4 tenths of their best times. I also love it when head coaches expect to track all of these times.  8 coaches, 8 athletes running these at once. 8 different raters, just not accurate or realistic. Doing these for a conditioning test is like saying, "we love hamstring pulls!"

So, for the last time, coaches must ask, "why are we testing their level of conditioning.?" Now I am not a fan of implementing a conditioning tests that simulates the game of football.  Remember, preparing for camp is not preparing for a game. At the same time, the players need to possess a certain level of fitness in order to stay healthy and perform at their best.

Moat times, when an athlete fails the standards of the test, they are required to repeat the test until they pass or for a certain amount of time.  So we are making an out of shape, unprepared athlete run more in order to either 1.) get him "in shape" as fast as possible or 2.) punish the athlete for not getting in shape. either way the goal is to motivate the athlete over the summer. It works in a lot of cases.

To me, I want to see if the athlete is prepared for the rigors of practice without adding a ton of ground-contacts. The two tests I though made the most sense at least for football were.

2 - 300 Shuttles w/ 3 minute RI. I realize this is not the proper "energy system" for what you are looking for, but comparing the two numbers can give you a good look at basis repeatability without a ton of yardage. The first rep had target times and the second would be based of the first.

4-6 Half Gassers w/ 30-60 sec.  There is less variability in the target times but now you reduce the number of changes in direction to 4 to 6 and the athletes can never really get to top-end speed. You can increase rest intervals for each sprint. Only issue is acceleration ability can mask work capacity.

The Bottom Line

The number one thing you can do to ensure more optimum physical preparedness is to change the culture of the team. Teaching the athletes the importance of preparing in the off-season, promoting the right players, and empowering the athletes to hold each other accountable will do more for your Fall camp readiness than any test. I am not saying testing at that time is not important, but make sure there is a reason why.

Change "Have to" into "Get to"

 References:

The Path the Athletic Power

DELOAD WEEK (I guess)

TUESDAY

Kettlebell Complex 1

Single KB Swing + High Pull + Snatch

  • Three sets of 5+5+5

Kettlebell Complex 2

Double KB Clean + Squat Press Combo

  • Three Sets of 5

Double KB Clean + Squat + OHP + Squat Press Complex

THURSDAY

Snatch Grip Warm-Up

Hang Power Snatch Complex

1 Pocket + 1 Mid-Thigh + Above Knee

40kg for 5 triples

Dumbbell Superset

DB Bench Press 80s x20

DB CS Row 60s x20

DB Incline Bench Press 60s x20

DB CS Row 40s x20

SATURDAY

Dynamic Effort Complex

Log Press + Med Ball Floor Slams + Med Ball Rotational Throw for 3 "Rounds"

Log Press (1 clean, 1 viper, 1 strict press, re-lap, 1 viper, 1-3 strict presses

170x4

200x5

170x6

Med Ball Floor Slams

30lb for 3 sets of 5

Med Ball Rotational Push Throws

5kg for 3 sets of 5,4,3

 

ECCENTRIC WEEK

MONDAY

LB Complex (3 rounds)

  • Eccentric Sqaut
  • Isometric Box Jump
  • Lightened Vertical Jump

SS Yoke Bar Squat

200 for 3 sets of 5 with 3 sec Eccentric

Isometric Box Jumps (hold at bottom squat position)

  • 3 sets of 3

Lightened Vertical Jumps (Avg bands under arms)

  • 3 sets of 5

Glute-Ham Raise Mechanical Drop Set

  • Pin 2 x8
  • Pin 3 x8

 Standing Crunch (Avg. bands on GHR)

  • 1x15

Band TKEs (strong band)

  • 1x20

TUESDAY

UB Circuit - 3 Rounds

High Pull from Hang (hybrid grip)

  • 200 for 3 sets of 5

BB Bench Press (3 sec Ecc)

  • 200 for 3 sets of 5

Eccentric OH Grip Pull-Ups

  • 3 sets of 5

THURSDAY

RDL w/ 3 sec Ecc

  • 295 x5
  • 245 x5

Split Jumps FFE

  • 1x5 each

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