High School Athletic Development – bridging the Gap (Part 3)
In part 1, we delved in detail into why the High School sector is the key missing link (and very realistic option) between junior and senior sport
In part 2, we went over the depth of options that exist in other countries as well as took a look at when in the school day such a program would run.
But this discussion in part 2 was more a brief overview, now we will start to dive in a little more detail into the implementing, and importantly, how to actually get started.
The first couple parts of this discussion applied to everyone – every school and every situation – and were laying the groundwork with the ‘why’ as well as giving background on the issue. From this point onward, as with many things, there is no ‘one size fits all’ or ‘best way of setting it up’. In terms of how to go about both starting and also running an athletic development/strength and conditioning program at a high school, the end product will depend very much on;
-What sort of facility you have at your disposal
-How many students do you intend opening the program up to, or which year levels you are opening it up for
-How many days per week
-The existing timetable at your school
-The space available to you
-The timeline over which you are looking to introduce it
We will go through all of these, in looking at various options or examples of what your program could look like – or could initially look like in terms of getting one started..
Facility
Naturally if you have a well set-up facility, that is great. If you don’t, you would be surprised the relatively low cost (especially compared to the sums of money I see spent on other things.) I recently saw an elite high school here open up their new 45 million dollar sport facility, which actually contained a very small gym area – crazy considering how much money was spent. To set up a well decked out one that offers everything young developing junior athletes need does not require endless machines, nor a huge budget.
Those closely associated with athletic development understand this, however many people – who are in decision making positions – and don’t have the understanding of training still see costly and bulky machines as the pinnacle of what is needed. I think if they understood just how inexpensive (relatively) such a set up genuinely is (based on high school budgets) they would be shocked.
Small set ups like these above are more than enough to run a brilliant school program out of. They are also cost-effective - very much inside the spending and development budgets of most High Schools.
You only have to look up a few of the private training facilities that performance coaches are opening up more and more of here in Australia – for a good idea of what these facilities require and could look like. And then when you are looking at this, ask yourself what exactly you think the budgets would be for these 1 or 2 coaches opening up a facility are. Do you think they would be able to spend huge sums to deck out these facilities with their equipment? Then compare the funds of 1 or 2 coaches or personal trainers to the sort of budgets available to a high school.
Point made, the creating of a facility, or the upgrading of an existing one is not cost-prohibitive – certainly not in terms of the internal aspect of it. If you actually need to build a new building of some sort this naturally increases it. But for a school that doesn’t have an existing facility but is looking to create one, the primary sticking point will be finding a space, rather than being cost prohibitive.
So the level of facility a school currently has – or is designing to have – will vary across the spectrum. The key point here being that it doesn’t need to be enormous. A further very point here is that if you don’t have a gym facility at all (which I would say most high schools in Australia still don’t), this isn’t an issue either – and in all likelihood is potentially a good thing while you introduce a strength and conditioning program gradually in phases.
Which ties in together with another important point – that when introducing this, it is far better to start with something small, that gradually expands out over several years before reaching its completed form.
So you can still develop a very good introductory program without the facility and with minimal equipment. Here is why;
-Junior athletes need to master their bodyweight before adding external resistance. There are such a large number of ways of doing this when considering different primal movement patterns, different speeds, different planes of movement, isometrics, pause reps, different tempos, etc.
-On that previous point – a teenage boy (most typically) is always going to gravitate to lifting extra weight before they have earned the right to. A lack of facility or equipment forces students to follow the appropriate foundation before adding any external weight.
-On top of the use of body weight – and manipulating it an infinite number of ways via the measures listed above, a few dumbbells, kettlebells and medicine balls will provide for ample overload. Additionally, we are still talking strength work here. This is before even considering power/plyometrics, and training around acceleration deceleration and change of direction.
-It would make sense to introduce such a program 1 day per week – like I said, something small and gradual, which working in the service to the existing timetable and school structure. In such an instance, a fully decked out facility makes no sense (unless you already have one of course.)
-Most schools have a hall – you would only need to use a very small section of this – and on days when the weather is good, there is no reason to not run them outside.
We will dive into the one-day per week/introduction in more detail in another discussion. The key point here being that far from being a limiting factor, a lack of facility is not only not an issue, but actually a benefit when it comes to slowly introducing a program. Even more importantly for decision makers at the school, it will help to inform whether it is worth budgeting to develop/re-develop a facility of sorts, and then also inform what sort of size and scope to develop that facility to.
How many students, and what year levels?
This will depend on the other factors discussed here, such as the size of your facility, how many days/free lessons per week are available, the size and scope of he program you are looking to run, as well as what stage of the development of your program you are in. So importantly, the answer to this question can and will change and evolve as your situation changes and evolves.
Stated most simply, the senior year levels should get the priority and majority of the service – years 10-12, with year 9 and potentially year 8 potentially added in later once a well developed system and structure is in operation. These older students are the ones who will begin to be heading into high-performance junior sports setting, representative teams, as well as begin to face the specter of accumulation of niggles and injuries. That is not to say that this is unimportant for the year 8’s and 9’s, simply that when faced with a limitation in time, services and facility availability, priority goes to the older students.
By extension, the year 11’s and 12’s should also be the students that get priority in a well-established system, if there are limitations in time and availability. However, if beginning a program from scratch, and looking to build up gradually – which would likely result in potentially only initiating the program in one year level, year 10 is probably the best option. I’ll explain why elsewhere.
In terms of session sizes, and once again depending on the facility, equipment and number of S&C coaches available running the program (which in most schools will be 1), 8-12 is the right sort of size in terms of maintaining a good level of quality coaching and interaction, as well as allowing access to a good number of students. If you are running 6 x 1 hour blocks of training, you are talking about 50-70 students granted access to a quality level of coaching in a day. Once again, start small, grow it out.
In terms of which students get access first – the first ones within the selected year levels that get access to sign up are the ones who are registered for one or more sports for the school. Having said that, if you are going to start small, and build 1 year level and/or 1 day per week at a time, there should not be an excess of students relative to available spots. Not every student is going to want to do strength and conditioning work, as not everyone is physically inclined. So this shouldn’t be a major issue. Then in starting small, with perhaps 1-year level and maybe only 1 day per week at first, then when the school wishes to add another year level, the program can be extended to a second day each week for example.
Where during the day?
As touched on in far more detail elsewhere, this should be a during the school day activity. Not another after school commitment to load up on an already-over-loaded group. Especially the physically talented kids – they have enough after school commitments with training alone. Let alone homework. Adding this as another after school commitment only overloads further in my opinion unless it is during the off season and there are no team/club/school trainings.
However, some extra involvement could look to be implemented within the existing sport training session as an extra. Lets say the 1st X11 soccer have training twice per week, there could be a 15-20 minute component on one of their existing training nights where you squeeze some extra in there (as a very broad and basic example.)
At most high schools, years 10-12 get anywhere between 1 and 3 free lessons per week – where they go to class and work on whatever they want. This is the time and place where it makes the most sense to go to a gym block for the 40-50 minute free lesson. The use of the free lesson for students 1-2 times per week provides the simplest solution – and also the clearest demonstration that there is time during the day – as physical development is very much important – and beneficial to other aspects of the school day too.
So start with free lessons, and then work from there. Once again, the smaller you start, the easier it is to build into. Tuesday is the day when all the year 11’s get their free lessons? Great then Tuesday is the day when we initially look to implement the embryonic stages of a strength and condition service to the athletically minded year 11 students. Start small, build it out.
So what does the end state look like?
Ideally, and realistically, a brilliant service at the disposal of athletically minded teenagers (as opposed to ‘teenage athletes’) is one that;
-Involves 2 training sessions per week (35-50 minutes each)
-Done during the school day (ideally in free lessons)
-Available for years 10-12 (with 1 day per week for year 10’s, then building on that the next 2 years perhaps).
Below is a hypothetical of what could be built up to over a period of time, using the free-lesson slots as the training times.
This is of course purely a hypothetical – and done for illustrative purposes. But this hopefully highlights how a system can be structured around free lessons, with more and more options opening up to the higher year levels. There is also naturally lots of room for growth on top of this, with Wednesday completely left off, and Friday only including a few options for year 12’s.
Yet despite this, in the above layout, with sessions open for up to 12 students at a time, this still allows;
-120 sessions for year 12’s (60 students doing 2 per week)
-72 sessions for year 11’s (20 students doing 2, and 32 students doing 1)
-48 sessions for year 10’s (48 students doing 1)
Such a system places a sizable population of the student cohort (the athletically minded population) ahead of the pack already. Having access to this quality coaching service once – let alone twice per week – EVERY WEEK – is a massive head start over their peers out at Hockey SA or Glenelg Footy Club or Adelaide United Youth, or the other First XVIII sides they are competing against as well.
What should be included in sessions?
A first very important thing to point out – is that well coached training will not interfere with sport training, nor leave students exhausted and unable to function after the sessions. Students should not feel sore or tired after sessions, as the emphasis is on movement quality and developing qualities, not flogging them bootcamp style. Often the reason these ideas face road blocks is this misunderstanding by decision makers, of what athletic development actually is.
In terms of what is included (services as well as exercises) – well that is potentially a whole book. We will dive into it in another discussion – the skeleton of an outline anyway, as this could involve not only the S&C sessions themselves, but also;
-Communication with external club coaches
-Extra direction in programming
-Working with the schools sports coaches – programming, and in certain cases working with certain teams
To reiterate – start small – and push out, 1 thing at a time. And that will be what we look at next – how to start small – what to involve, and how to put little things in place to overcome the major hurdle in everything – getting started.
Strength Coach
