elitefts™ Sunday edition

Create a Winning Environment in Your Weight Room

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” — John Maxwell

This is a quote I think about at least once a day. As strength coaches, it’s important for us to understand that until we develop a personal relationship with our athletes, they won’t work hard for us. The question before us as strength professionals is, how do we create a winning environment in our weight rooms?

While thinking about this question, remember that our ideas must ultimately fit into our head sport coach’s ultimate philosophy. Many of us work with multiple teams, and in that environment, we must take what we believe and fit into the philosophy of those head sport coaches. For example, one of my head coaches believes in competing within yourself. This means that we don’t mention our competitors. We only worry about ourselves and our team. Another sports coach I work with loves to use upcoming games as motivation for his team. I have to find a way to be myself and coach how I coach while fitting into the belief system of each sports coach.

In Pittsburgh, I’m lucky because there is a group of strength coaches from different universities in the area who all want to learn from one another. After the CSCCa convention this year, Tim Beltz, the head strength coach for basketball at the University of Pittsburgh, contacted me and suggested that we get together and learn from each other more often. Tim and I have been friends for years and meet for happy hour quite often. Tim’s idea was to get all the local strength coaches together for a monthly meeting. This was a great idea, and strength coaches from the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Robert Morris University, California University of Pennsylvania, and Waynesburg University started meeting monthly. Each meeting began with a short presentation from one of the strength coaches (presenters ranged from interns to head strength coaches) and was followed by a conversation lasting about another hour or so. During these talks, I learned that we all tended to agree on the basic training principles but spent the bulk of our time discussing how to motivate athletes and improve our staff.

So I took my thoughts on creating a winning environment in the weight room to this group as well as some other strength professionals and asked them five questions:

How much does motivation of the athlete come into your actual programming, or do you just program the science and then motivate on the floor?
How different is the training environment from team to team in your weight room?
Do you ever have staff members lift with the team to help motivate the athletes?
How much influence does the head coach’s philosophy have on team specific motivation?
Do you have any final thoughts?

I planned on summarizing everyone’s thoughts, but the answers from two coaches really stood out for me, so I’ll post their answers in their entirety.

Donnell Boucher

Here’s what Donnell Boucher, the head strength coach at the Citadel, had to say:

1. How much does motivation of the athlete come into your actual programming, or do you just program the science and then motivate on the floor?

Motivation is a sticky subject for me. I believe in the importance of a fast paced, enjoyable environment but not because it motivates people. I believe the pulse of the room/session has more to do with the effectiveness of the training. In our opinion, motivational sayings/pictures don’t get a kid to buy into you—results do. The young people we coach want information or abilities that are going to help them play their sport faster, and regardless of how you deliver that, it’s what creates motivation at the end of the day. We establish trust with the athlete and belief in the strength coach. Once you establish trust, the athlete will believe that what he’s doing in the weight room will show up in his on-field performance. Do we plan tactics ahead of time to help the process happen? Yes. It is my philosophy that the more time a coach talks the more time is wasted. So we like to prioritize our coaching and overview so that it takes up minimal time.

The same goes for delivery. Slow and quiet don’t cut it. You have to be a strong communicator, and if passion isn’t on display, you can bet that your athletes won’t be too engaged. This is absolutely critical in the collegiate team setting. You’re dealing with 18- to 22-year-old kids who are there to play a sport, not lift weights. You have to keep their attention during the small time it’s available. I think that motivation is really internal and can’t be created per se. I believe it can only be encouraged and expected. We care and get excited about achievement and development, and in hindsight, that is probably why our athletes exhibit a high level of motivation in training.

2.How different is the training environment from team to team in your weight room?

This is a topic of debate with the younger members of my staff. To me, the training environment doesn’t change. All the expectations and styles are present and consistent with every team. I don’t approach our men’s basketball players any differently than our women’s soccer players. They all know I’m loud, excited, and demanding. Now I may communicate differently by talking about how their training ties into their given sport or bring up some social aspect of life that I know interests them, but that isn’t about training. That stems from building relationships. It’s about knowing your audience. I’m not going to go to lunch with the president of our school and talk about Mortal Kombat just like I’m not going to talk about mitochondria or the rate of force development with an 18-year-old basketball player from Houston. I might talk about a new lil' Wayne song that’s getting played on the sound system or I might bring up the US women’s team to a female soccer player. That’s all small talk though. None of that is really applicable to the information being conveyed. No matter what team is inside our weight room, the music will be loud, the coaches will be fired up and coaching hard, and you will be called out if you’re holding the team back. There aren’t any changes in those environmental aspects.

3. Do you ever have staff members lift with the team to help motivate the athletes?

We will lift with the teams when we have the availability, but it isn’t about motivation. It’s more about displaying a visual, real world example of what we expect and teaching indirectly. Many athletes don’t have any clue how they should work together on a platform. Sometimes we will insert ourselves in a group and help them understand. Whenever there is a coach on a platform with athletes, you can bet that platform is moving at a faster pace and more efficiently than all the rest. When the coach leaves later on, the athletes usually continue to work together at a high level.

4.How much influence does the head coach’s philosophy have on team specific motivation?

Our head coach wants the weight room enjoyable and driven by results. His definition of enjoyable doesn’t mean that the athletes simply ‘like’ the program. It’s about understanding the value in what we do and earning what you want. We shape our program to meet those goals, and he supports us.

5. Do you have any final thoughts?

This is a great topic, and motivation gets discussed all the time. In my short career, I’ve found that motivation takes a back seat to strong communication and coach’s motives. If you run a good system that you’ve worked on developing and you operate with your athletes’ best interests in mind, they will be motivated. If you’re more concerned with how much weight you can lift or how loud you can yell, they won’t be very motivated because it will be clear to them that the program is about you instead of them. We appeal to their self-interest of being a better football player, and communicate effectively and uphold accountability. Motivation is a product of that equation and comes from them. There are two books I’d like to recommend that are related to the topic—Made to Stick and Switch, both by Chip and Dan Heath. They are ’must reads’ for people who are responsible for initiating action.

Kevin Argauer

Here’s what Kevin Argauer, the assistant Olympic strength coach at the University of Pittsburgh, responded with:

1. How much does motivation of the athlete come into your actual programming, or do you just program the science and then motivate on the floor?

Motivation plays a huge role when I’m thinking about what to do with my athletes. I like to have at least one exercise or movement that I know my teams will enjoy and really get after. For some teams like wrestling, that’s easy. They get excited just looking at the weights. Some people love to bench, some people love to squat, and others love the Olympic lifts. Having a mix of exercises that most of the athletes like to do makes it easier for them to motivate themselves. It’s our job to keep that motivation level high regardless of the exercise. If you can make an athlete as excited about banded shoulder rotations as he is about reverse band benches, you’re on the right path.

2.How different is the training environment from team to team in your weight room?

We try to keep the environment as high energy as possible for every team in the weight room. However, there is always a difference from group to group. The energy in the room when the swim team is in versus when the throwers from the track team are in is very different. They are both high energy, but the “vibe” is very different. Swimmers seem to be very positive and helpful to one another and are always encouraging the whole team. The throwers team is still positive, but the intensity is through the roof and the biggest concern is moving heavy weights.

3. Do you ever have staff members lift with the team to help motivate the athletes?

We typically don’t perform the lifts with our athletes. We’ve found it hard to get a lift in and coach effectively. I’ve done some of my training with athletes in the room. I think that it’s good for teams to see how I train and to see that I still push myself to be better.

4.How much influence does the head coach’s philosophy have on team specific motivation?

The way I coach my teams is very much a reflection of how the head coach treats his or her athletes. If the head coach has a calm and nurturing style with the athletes, they may not respond well to someone getting in their face trying to push them to work harder. Those athletes may need a more cerebral type of motivation. On the other hand, if the head coach is in their face all the time, it could be a nice break for them to be motivated in a different way. However, many times a high intensity coach wants that style to carry through to the weight room.

5. Do you have any final thoughts?

I think that one of the best ways to motivate an athlete to want to work harder, be on time, and learn more about how lifting weights can help him succeed in whatever sport he may play is to educate him. I think that it’s far easier for an athlete to stomach his way through monotonous rehabilitation/prehabilitation work if he knows it will help make his shoulders, knees, and hips stronger and reduce his chances of injury. In my opinion, an educated athlete is far less likely to miss lifts or make excuses about why he can’t do a lift. Teaching the athletes about how lifting weights and following their program to the letter can benefit them is an essential part to ensuring a successful athlete.

Similarities

The similarities in the answers from these two coaches who have never met before really stood out for me. This is something that gets lost quite often in our profession. Are we really all that different? At the end of the day, the goal is to make our athletes or teams better. Sometimes this means we need to motivate one athlete, and sometimes we need to work within the program to work with the team. However, the number one goal is to educate the athletes. Most strength coaches that I’ve met really have a desire to educate their athletes and improve their athletes’ lives.

Leaders Versus Managers

Now that we’ve looked at how different strength coaches create a winning environment in their weight rooms, let’s examine the difference between leaders and managers.

Leaders have a vision. They must move their departments where they need to go in the future. I’m very lucky to work where I do because I have a president who is a great leader and has a great vision. This puts me in a position where I can manage what I need to manage, and still be a leader and move my department in the right direction. A manager must have faith in the leaders and follow appropriately. I fully believe that this is one of the biggest mistakes in our profession. We all want to be great leaders, but we must also follow and manage. How does one manage the weight room and still lead his athletes?

Is bigger better? Ask a young strength coach where he wants to coach and he will almost always say the name of a big school. When I was young, I figured I wanted to be at a school in the ACC, SEC, or Big East. I didn’t want to work in the conference that I’m currently in, but through the years, I’ve learned that if you have great leadership, the place where you work can be great. My bosses create a winning environment, and I can follow their lead. Without them, my job wouldn’t matter. Don’t take this as me saying that small schools are good and large schools are bad. What I’m saying is that any school or institution with great leadership can be great.

Another way to look at this great leadership versus great manager topic is something I stole from Baylor University’s strength staff. At the CSCCa conference this year, they posed the question, “Are you Rambo or the Pittsburgh Steelers?” What does this mean, and how does it affect us? Think about Rambo. He kills all the bad guys and saves the day, and we all leave the movie theater chanting ‘USA.’ But the downside to Rambo is that one bullet ends it all. If any random bad guy shoots Rambo, we lose. On the other hand, we have the Pittsburgh Steelers. Love them or hate them, they will always be competitive. It is part of the culture. No single player or coach is more important than the institution that they play for. The leadership of the Pittsburgh Steelers created a winning environment that very few teams can keep up with. So ask yourself—are you the Steelers or are you Rambo? If you have to leave the room because a coach needs you, will the room still be run as if you were still there? This is something we stress daily in our weight room. This is where effective managing comes in. I must sell my vision (as a leader) and then manage my people to follow through and work hard for us.