A High School Strength and Conditioning Program
Here’s insight into our high school strength and conditioning program. Consider the principles we follow.
6 Ways to Increase Performance
Increase your athlete’s performance so they become stronger, faster and more efficient. Here are 6 program designing concepts to implement.
The Education of a Strength and Conditioning Coach
Motivate your pupils to become the best version of themselves and the TEAM will dominate on the field.
5 Things I Learned About High School S&C
Volunteering under a local public school district’s strength and conditioning coach, here are five things to know as you pursue this job track.
INTERVIEW: University of Minnesota's Strength and Conditioning Coac...
Willie walks us through a typical day of coaching and gives you advice of how to climb the ranks to the Division 1 level.
Compliance is the Science
What’s the point of putting all that work into thinking and planning an in-season program if 90 percent of the people aren’t going to do it?
Relationships and Team Dynamics
I write this after fielding many questions during this COVID-19 lockdown period from young strength and conditioning coaches who have either lost their jobs or are at a crossroads of confidence. In some 30 years, I’ve had 17 strength and conditioning jobs…
How a Small School Strength Coach Becomes a Big School Strength Coach
The weight room that I worked in was a 3,000-square-foot facility that housed 20 teams and more than 400 athletes. Even though the weight room was built to optimize the space, as you can imagine, things got really tight.
Down the Road to Pinball Wizardry
As a strength and conditioning coach, your job takes on the journey of a metallic ball on a playfield inside a glass-covered cabinet — never traveling in a straight line. Strap in as the ride will get bumpy!
Pre-Season: Our Time to Shine
It is the one chance each year that sports practices do not take priority or leave players fatigued that they cannot give 100 percent to the physical development program.
5 Ways to Make Weight Rooms Work for Our Kids
To quote the third single from The Offspring’s album Americana: The kids aren’t alright. But a solid school weight room can make a huge difference in these kids’ lives and overall education. Here are five things the best school weight rooms have.
Before You Social Media Shame Athletes' Poor Technique
All too often we sit back and make judgments through a keyboard in an instant rather than thinking that this is one moment of a program rather than the whole thing. I know that I have done this, too, earlier in my career (and on the wrong day, recently, too).
The Coach's Order of Operation
Exactly where does coaching begin? With the sport, athlete, or person?
My Experiences in Three Internship Settings
This article is a cool opportunity to see what an intern we had this summer, Tim, has to say. His experiences are unique as he interned at a great local college, a local high school, then at Tank’s Training Facility.
Learn to Train X — Teach Your Athletes How to Train
In this particular clip, Harvey switches gears to provide some personal advice on teaching athletes how to train themselves – a not-so-simple technique that requires trust, buy-in, strategy, and effort.
Resignation of a Strength Coach
There is actually a history here, and something I think young coaches getting into the profession need to think about.
Starting Over as a Full-Time Coach
Too often in our industry, before we’ve even seen the athletes, we talk about what programs we’re going to use and how these programs need to be implemented.
You’re Training Athletes, Not Lifters
I had those days, especially early on in my career, that I didn’t understand why the athletes weren’t as enthusiastic as I was at 6 AM. I mean, what the hell is better than getting up early and training your ass off?
Start Here Before You Clean
A lot of individuals take what’s arguably the most highly coordinated regimen you can perform in the weight room and start individuals doing it day 1. At the collegiate level, these are the movements I make sure that my athletes can do before they are allowed to perform a proper clean motion.
Resurgence After the Rust
When the dust settles and I turn the lights off in that weight room for that final time, what legacy will I leave, how many lives did I touch?
So You Want to Be A Collegiate Strength Coach: Untold Truths of the Job
Here are some rarely discussed things to keep in mind when asking yourself if you really want to become a collegiate strength and conditioning coach.
6 Lessons of a Fired Strength Coach
Last week I went into a meeting with my direct supervisor and came out jobless. Here are the things I’ve learned and the mistakes I’ve made that led me to this point.
Building A Summer Training Philosophy
These are the five ingredients you need to put together the summer plans for your athletes: core exercises and runs, team goals, position plans, individual goals, and correct grouping.
Getting the New Job: Sharpen the Sword
Doing an extraordinary job in your present position does not guarantee you immunity to the inevitable changes that take place with funding cuts, administration changes, or coaches moving on. Are you prepared to find a new position?
WATCH: Jeremy Frey's 2018 elitefts Sport Performance Summit — Front...
Missouri State University Director of Strength and Conditioning Jeremy Frey has a few ways to make front squatting easier to learn and more effective for your athletes. Here are the things that are most important to focus on.
LISTEN: Just Fly Performance Podcast Episode 16 with Guest Mark Watts
Most athletes will forget the win-loss records of their teams, but they won’t forget the way the coach treated them. This podcast episode focuses on the impact coaches can have on young athletes outside of sets and reps.
Trust the Process — Perfection
Turn into the head coach of the weight room. Come up with a plan to cover everything down to the finest detail.
The Coach's Guide to Programming and Periodization: Basic Principle...
We can’t simply throw random exercises and set and rep schemes on a piece of paper haphazardly and then hope for the best. In this series I will teach you how to write programs, including a coach’s assignment for each article.
WATCH: Jim Wendler's 2018 elitefts Sports Performance Summit Presen...
To close his presentation, Wendler discusses exercise selection, indicators of athlete readiness, and the importance of knowing the trapdoors of your training program.
The Qualities I Look for in a Strength and Conditioning Intern or Colleague
When I interview someone and consider letting them join my team, these are the things I consider.
WATCH: Jim Wendler's 2018 elitefts Sports Performance Summit Presen...
The starting point with youth athletes today is drastically different than it was 30 years ago. This means the training plan needs to be different too.
Weight Room Lessons from Former Athletes
After writing about the importance of getting to know your athletes, I decided to take a real look at whether or not I’ve had an impact. I contacted two of my former athletes and asked them to tell me what they learned in the weight room.
Establishing Team Culture in the Spring — FUNdamentals
This is a great opportunity for you as the strength coach to step in and provide the leadership and culture to propel your team forward in the fall.
Living Better in a Profession of Martyrdom: Advice for Young Strength Co...
We need to think about the quality of life and how to increase longevity in this profession. What we are doing does not lead to it.
Moving Tips for Strength Coaches
Accepting a new coaching position and uprooting your life to a different city and state is one of the worst parts of our profession, but following these six steps can help simplify the process.
21 Again: Reflecting on Lessons from Over Two Decades as a Strength Coach
My time in this industry has taught me a lot. I’d like to share some pearls of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way that I think will be useful to others.
Want to Make the Industry Better? Be Better
Mike Gittleson once told me that becoming a good coach means learning to use your voice as a weapon. This changed everything about my mindset to communicating with my team.
WATCH: Mark Lambert — Strength Coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning of the ...
Tampa Bay Lightning takes home the 2020 Stanley Cup! Learn how they train off the ice with strength coach Mark Lambert.
Real Life Status — Who's Watching You?
After our recent bowl game, all-time great Denver Bronco and two-time Pro Bowler Rod Smith spoke to my team and shared an important message that got me thinking about my athletes and my personal mission statement.
Athlete Programming Made Simple
I cannot have rep integrity, movement efficiency, and tempo in the weight room if my athletes are dumbfounded by the extremely complex exercise selection that looks like a NASA test simulator. So let’s focus on simplifying things.
Life Is About Growth, Not Comfort
It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to be uncomfortable. Defeat can lead to victory if you learn from it and gain experience along the way.
7 Pillars of Leadership
I recently spoke to my university’s leadership committee and it got me thinking about some things that are imperative to the success of strength and conditioning coaches.
WATCH: Q&A with Coach Kav — The Most Common Weaknesses of Aspiring N...
When young athletes who plan to go into an NFL camp or enter the draft visit Coach Kav, there are two main issues he almost always encounters.
The Human Element
College athletics may be a giant machine, but the humans run it. We need to understand that the athletes, just like us as coaches, have good days and bad days, and instilling good character should always be number one.
The Do's and Don'ts of Leadership
Since college, I’ve worked at seven different universities and a few Globo gyms. I’ve run clinics, I’ve trained privately, and I’ve even worked construction. From all this, I’ve learned from some great leaders and some less than great leaders.
Grading Professionalism in Collegiate Strength and Conditioning
This is a difficult issue to balance because people expect us to be over the top and screaming all the time. I’m asking that we raise the level of professionalism.
Bring Your Passion
As a profession, we must look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we’re doing what we’re asking others to do.
WATCH: The Strength Coach Development Center — Overhead Press Progression
A lot of coaches shy away from the overhead press because it’s “dangerous.” But my question to the coaches that say that: “Aren’t most exercises potentially dangerous?”
X Marks the Spot: 3 Ways to Make It to Your Next Big Coaching Job
Everyone wants to be the head strength coach at a school that has a realistic opportunity to compete for a national championship, but I don’t think enough people put the right kind of plan in place to get there.
What Qualifies A Mentor?
There are a lot of people that hold positions of power, but that does not mean they are true mentors. What does?
LISTEN: The Podcast with Jay DeMayo — Mark Watts on the Field Today
Stepping outside ‘the grind’ of coaching has given Mark a different perspective on his career in strength and conditioning and the challenges that young coaches face. He shares his thoughts on this topic and more in Episode 77.
5 Coaching Rants to Reframe and Apply
Layering thousands of coaching hours on the floor with successes and failures, I think I know what works and what doesn’t work.
Training Lanes: A Guide to Conjugate Programming for Athletes
Some people say that being a good teacher means explaining things in the simplest, easiest-to-understand terms. When it comes to conjugate programming, using training lanes is the way to accomplish this.
What Are You Trying to Build?
When you say “culture”, are you sure you know what you’re referring to? Here’s what this word means to our program.
What Drives Performance: Processes Not Outcomes
How we are judged is out of our hands in a lot of ways, but if I adhere to my processes and don’t compromise my principles, morals, or values, then I can honestly say that I have been successful in my role as a strength and conditioning coach.
Is It Time to Rethink What We Do?
We should not ask how much volume and intensity of training a player can tolerate, but should instead ask how much volume and intensity of training a player needs to excel at their sport with minimal risk of injury.
Finding Your Niche in S&C as a Female Coach
Professionals who succeed in the field career athletics are few and far between. Look to the ranks of women and the numbers drop even further.
Time to Pass the Mic
I decided to interview a coach who I respect immensely for this month’s article. Meet Coach Buckley.
Pacey Performance Podcast — Mark Watts and Aiden Oakley
With an abundance of experience in strength and conditioning, Watts and Oakley share an in-depth evaluation of the opportunities for growth in the industry.