With many high schools being closed for the remainder of the school year, and with the summer months being unknown in terms of opportunities to interact with fall season athletes, many coaches find themselves trying to get their athletes together for video chat workouts. Some coaches just hope that the kids take it upon themselves to figure it out. Although the group video workouts can have the teams working together, having everyone do the most basic workout to fit the needs of the students with no equipment is a disservice to the students who have access to some weights or a home gym.
The purpose of this program is to provide high school programs with a general layout for each student to be able to customize his or her own specific training plan. Although the program has been designed for a high school football team, the flexible, universal nature of this program could lend itself to any sport in which speed, strength, and conditioning are required (which should be all of them). It is designed so that the students will experience a variety of training methods: mobility, strength/hypertrophy, explosiveness, speed, and conditioning. They just need to plug in the equipment they have access to and follow the plan. Every student has a different situation; some might have a home gym, whereas others have nothing. Providing guidance as to how to best use their equipment is a better option than just telling everyone to do push-ups, bodyweight squats, and burpees for the next four months.
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Within the workout are links to some demonstrations of drills. I use my strength coaching Instagram account (@highschoolstrengthcoach) as a way to post demonstrations and answer questions from my athletes. You could do something similar or refer to mine.
From this point on, the program could potentially be printed out and used right away. Good luck!
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
- Maintain muscle, strength, and fitness.
- Increase speed, explosiveness, and conditioning with little to no gym/weight room access.
- Develop independence in strength training program design and progression.
PROGRAM RATIONALE/DESCRIPTION
*READ THIS SO THAT YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WHY. When you are done, read it again.
It is understood that you may have limited or even no access to any strength training equipment. This program is designed to be flexible with what you have available to you in these unprecedented times.
This program will provide you with some general guidelines for certain objectives in which each person has different resources available, but also specific guidelines for objectives that can be met without any necessary equipment.
This program is a comprehensive training program, but it is NOT specific to positions. With the wide range of equipment accessibility, selecting position-specific drills, exercises, etc., would be too difficult to program for. Right now, you need to focus on maintaining as much strength and fitness as you can and try to increase your speed, power, agility, conditioning, and overall preparedness.
EXERCISE SELECTION
For players with access to weights, you are expected to continue to train with weights. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the athletes with absolutely no access to any sort of strength training equipment. Players will have the ability to choose from a variety of exercises for specific muscle groups based on the equipment with which they have access to. For example, if the program calls for a bench press variation, the athlete will be given an option of the bench press with a barbell and plates, the DB floor press, or push-ups. All three will provide a training stimulus for the chest, deltoids, and triceps, just with varying equipment options. Granted that the athlete with access to a bench, barbell, and weights will have the opportunity to train with higher intensities, we must not take away that option for the sake of the athletes with limited options.
***WHEN CHOOSING EXERCISES WITHIN THE PROGRAM: Choose the exercise that will include the MOST advanced equipment you have. The order of MOST ADVANCED to MOST BASIC is:
PROGRAM COMPONENTS
There will be five components to this program: Mobility, explosiveness, strength/hypertrophy, speed, conditioning. You will not be doing all five every workout; instead, you will do combinations of them.
Mobility: This is the portion of the workout where you will mobilize your joints, warm up the muscles, increase your range of motion, and prepare yourself for this and future training sessions.
Explosiveness: This portion of the workout is where you will focus on making quick, explosive, and powerful movements.
Strength/Hypertrophy: This is the main lifting portion of the workout. You will try to build/maintain your strength and also focus on hypertrophy (hi-PER-truh-fee), which means "build muscle."
Speed: This portion of the workout will include drills to make you faster and more agile. You can take long rest periods to ensure that each set is as fast as you can go.
Conditioning: This portion of the workout will include activities that will increase your workload capacity and increase your cardiovascular endurance.
SCHEDULING/TIMING
We will train FOUR (4) days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Take off Wednesday as a recovery day. Please follow the exercises exactly as outlined. Don't just do whatever you want; they are in this order for a reason.
EXPECTATIONS
Although the expectations of your access to equipment are flexible, the expectation of YOUR WORK ETHIC IS NOT. You are expected to train hard every day, every set, every REP. Take your mobility and warm-ups seriously. Make the best of a bad situation, and come away from this experience with a new strength/skill, more speed/explosiveness, a laser-sharp focus, and appreciation for training in a fully equipped weight room with the supportive atmosphere of your teammates. You will not have coaches/teammates pushing you through your workout. YOU MUST BE THE FIRE SPARKING THE FUEL OF EVERY ONE OF YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS.
THE PROGRAM
LAYOUT
Day 1 - Monday: Mobility, Strength/Hypertrophy, Speed
Day 2 - Tuesday: Mobility, Explosiveness, Strength/Hypertrophy, Conditioning
OFF - Wednesday
Day 3 - Thursday: Mobility, Strength/Hypertrophy, Speed,
Day 4 - Friday: Mobility, Explosiveness, Strength/Hypertrophy, Conditioning
OFF - Saturday/Sunday
THE WORKOUT
DAY 1 -- Monday: Mobility, Strength/Hypertrophy, Speed
MOBILITY
Watch Demo:
STRENGTH/HYPERTROPHY
SPEED
Drill Videos:
DAY 2 -- Tuesday: Mobility, Explosiveness, Strength/Hypertrophy, Conditioning MOBILITY Watch Demo:
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EXPLOSIVENESS
STRENGTH/HYPERTROPHY
CONDITIONING
OFF -- Wednesday
DAY 3 -- Thursday: Mobility, Strength/Hypertrophy, Speed
MOBILITY
Watch Demo:
STRENGTH/HYPERTROPHY
SPEED
Drill Videos: DAY 4 - Friday: Mobility, Explosiveness, Strength/Hypertrophy, Conditioning
MOBILITY
Watch Demo:
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EXPLOSIVENESS
STRENGTH/HYPERTROPHY
CONDITIONING
OFF - Sat./Sun.
PROGRESSION
The coaches can't prescribe specific weight increments to increase your training workload, as every single one of us has a different situation at home. Doing so would require an inventory of every single person's home "gym" setup and individual programming created for each individual person. Can't happen….
You will be in charge of your own coaching, but keep in mind that we are trying to maintain our fitness, preserving strength and muscle, but get faster and more explosive. DO NOT try to over-do the strength/hypertrophy work.
The most important factor involved with training is to gradually MAKE PROGRESS in your exercises. This means adding training VOLUME. The term "PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD" refers to slowly adding volume to your workout as you slowly get better at doing them. This can be adding weight, reps, sets, or time, or doing the same weight/sets/reps/time, just with an even better technique.
Your responsibility in handling your training is to responsibly add more volume every one to two workouts. Just a small amount added is all you need. Add one to two reps per set, add five pounds to your main lifts, slow down, and control the reps better during this workout compared with the last one. DO NOT ADD 20 pounds each week and expect to continue to do that.
DO NOT train to failure. Training to failure is a good way to execute bad form, which reinforces more bad form. It is a risk for injury AND causes unnecessary fatigue, which is difficult to recover from.
CLOSURE
This is an unprecedented time. You will most likely never find yourself in a situation like this. Don't feel bad for yourself by not having access to the weight room and your teammates/coaches. Instead, imagine yourself as a caged animal isolated from society as you transform into the most powerful, explosive, and focused creature you can become. Change your mindset; wake up early, get your nutrition in check, train like a savage, appreciate your families, learn as much as you can, get to bed early, rest, recover, and repeat.
Your competition is probably not training right now. TAKE ADVANTAGE!
Be smart. Train hard. Be safe.
EMBRACE THE CHAOS.
SPEED KILLS.
STRENGTH PUNISHES.
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