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High School Strength and conditioning

By Larry Basalyga Strength Coach/ Offensive line

Centreville High School, Centreville, VA

In the past 25 years I have been around all kinds of weight lifting gurus. In the late 70’s and early eighties I was a training partner for Mr. USA and working out at the same time with Mike and Ray Menzter, Mr. Universe and Mr. America. I competed in power lifting and bodybuilding. Now as a coach there are all these routines I have accumulated over time. Some of them overlap, while some are completely different.

How do I use this information to help highs school football players reach their maximum strength potential while being aware that these are high school kids and not college or professional football players?

The first thing I did was start from scratch. “Who” I asked was the best strength coach in college football, and what program would I like to pattern a strength program after. That was easy, it was 2001 and Oklahoma just won a National Championship and they had Jerry Schmidt.

So that spring off to OU and a coach’s clinic. I had never been to one quite like this before. I wrote down everything they said and came back with a base program. I have gone every year since and learn something new every year. I don’t do all of what they do but I used it as a base. I do less of some things, and more of others. All the time keeping in mind this is high school. So I took all the information based on what I stole… I mean learned from Schmidt, Gentry, Arthur Jones, Cook, numerous articles from AFM and 25 years of lifting and Put together these basic principles:





It has to be fun. If they are not having fun they won’t come. Yes you can put rules such as 10 missed workouts and your out, but you really want the kids to feel punished if they miss because it is the place to be, as if they missed a Friday night party.

Music, laughter, and comradeship should accompany the strict workout environment. No, they are not mutually exclusive! You can have fun while working at your maximum effort. You see kids do it all the time on local basketball courts. The key is they are having fun.



More is not always better. A long distance runner engages in several times the amount of exercise as the sprinter, yet sprinters are by in large more heavily muscled, where as the long distance runner is leaner and much lighter. Strength training for football is just that, not bodybuilding, not power lifting, but strength training for football. Yes the bodybuilder and the power lifter posses many of the characteristics we want in our players, but also many we don’t or should I say are not required. One such element would be the long and teadus workouts. We want to get in and out quickly, number one because we already have these kids for a large part of the day during football season, now with year round training we need to keep it short and sweet. The workout should last no longer than 45 minutes! Plan your rest between sets accordingly so that you finish in this time period. Studies have shown that after 47 ½ minutes of intense weight training, your cortisol levels shoot up. This means that the longer you workout AFTER 47 minutes, the LESS results you will get and the more likely you will over train. So get in the gym, lift hard, stay focused, and get out!





Athletic strength and power as opposed to just pure strength. While acquiring this strength we need to channel it in the proper way. We do this by implementing plyometrics, stretching, and speed training. I think the speed training is self-explanatory; the plyometrics encompasses the core training along with explosive jumping and explosive pushing movement. Once a week we combine the power cleans and squats. This would be an Olympic lift where we would clean the weight and drop into a full squat and raise the weight. It has been shown that front squats when done to below parallel strengthen the muscles around the ACL that result in a decrease in ACL injuries. This also is a result of a better strength ratio between the hamstrings and thigh muscles.

In addition this exercise mimics the pass pro basics that often times are compromised by the lineman bending or lunging do to emphasis on the back squat. The power clean squat forces you to keep a straighter torso, while squatting the weight.



Now I have my basic principles for our training program and I put it all together and here is what I come up with:



Monday:

Dot drill followed by plyo-ball for abdominals, side twists with plyo-ball, hurdled-duck walks for hip flexors, and hurdle walks for stretching. A group of 12-15 at a time is the optimum for coaching purposes. It allows a good pace and supervision. 2:30-2:45



Squats warm-up rep set

Leg Curls warm -up rep set

RDL warm up rep set

Ham Glute rep set

Power Shrugs warm up rep set



Tuesday

Speed Training



Wednesday

Dot drill followed by plyo-ball for abdominals, side twists with plyo-ball, hurdled-duck walks for hip flexors, and hurdle walks for stretching. A group of 12-15 at a time is the optimum for coaching purposes. It allows a good pace and supervision. 2:30-2:45



Power Cleans warm up rep set

Bent Rows warm up rep set

Front lateral raises rep set

Side lateral raises rep set

Rear lateral raise rep set



Thursday

Speed Training



Friday

Dot drill followed by plyo-ball for abdominals, side twists with plyo-ball, hurdled-duck walks for hip flexors, and hurdle walks for stretching. A group of 12-15 at a time is the optimum for coaching purposes. It allows a good pace and supervision. 2:30-2:45



Power Clean High pulls warm up rep set

Bench Press warm up rep set

Tricep extensions warm up rep set

Dumbell curls warm up rep set



Periodization



Remember this is high school so after the season be it the state championship in December or at the end of the regular season the kids need time off. Let them rest until after winter break and we will start our first Phase.



Phase I-the workout stays the same but we will do warm up, rep set . It usually goes something like 15 -20. We will go for 20 reps on squat and 10 on all other exercises. We need perfect form, slow down and explode up. On squats make sure you are going all the way down to parallel.

This Phase will go for 8 weeks. We want to make sure the kids start with a weight they can easily do for the prescribed reps i.e. 20 or 10.

Let’s say for example Joey can squat 135lbs for 20 reps in perfect form, the next squat workout he will use 140lbs. We would like to increase 5lbs a week. Doing the math that would be 175lbs for 20 reps after 8 weeks.

Now we will rest for 2weeks no workouts and start again this time with a 20% or so reduction in the final weight, so the starting weight would be155lbs (actually 17.5 lbs but we round it out).

Now another 8 weeks with 5lbs. increments and Joey should be at 195lbs. for 20 reps.

We will take another 2 weeks off and continue in the same manner. Exponentially we would be at 52 weeks times 5lbs. would give us a 260 increase after one year? Not so fast, as the body increases the weight being used increased the stress on the recovery system and as you increase the weight we will see weeks where a 5lbs. increase produces only 17 reps. We must stay with this weight until we reach 20 reps to increase another 5 lbs.

Why 20 reps for squats and 10 reps for all other exercises?

In a study done at Ohio University 3 different groups trained using, low reps 3-5, medium reps 6-9, high reps 20-28. The group with the greatest strength increase was the low rep group, but the group that came in second was the high rep group with only a 1% less strength increase than the low rep group. In addition to the strength increase, there was also cardiovascular and various cardio respiratory parameters (e.g., maximum oxygen consumption, pulmonary ventilation, maximal aerobic power, time to exhaustion) were increased. These were assessed at the beginning and end of the study. In addition, maximal aerobic power and time to exhaustion significantly increased at the end of the study for only the High Rep group. Overall, however, these data demonstrate that both physical performance and the associated physiological adaptations are linked to the intensity and number of repetitions performed, and thus lend support to the "strength-endurance continuum".

Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University, Irvine Hall, rm 430, Athens, OH 45701, USA.

This phrase “time to exhaustion” in football terms means development of mental toughness.

This would underscore what we said from the beginning, that we want to develop an athlete or well trained football player as opposed to a power lifter or body builder.



Larry Basalyga

Strength Coach Centreville High School

Virginia High School Coaches Association-Member

American Football Coaches Association-Member

National Strength and Conditioning Association-Member

Coach Basalyga can be reached @ lbasalygasons@aol.com





Power Squat