By Abigail Funk
Abigail Funk is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. She can be reached at afunk@MomentumMedia.com.
Athletic Management, 17.4, June/July 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1704/strengthenstaff.htm
Two years ago at Emory University, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee came to the administration with a request: Could the department hire a strength and conditioning coach? Having a professional on board to design sport-specific lifting programs would make athletes more competitive and reduce injuries, they explained.
At Bangor High School in Pennsylvania, Assistant Athletic Director Bob Bailey thought he’d gauge interest in strength and conditioning for athletes by organizing a teaching seminar on the topic. Over 200 students showed up.
According to Charles Stiggins, Executive Director of the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association, every NCAA Division I-A institution has a full-time strength and conditioning staff. Student-athletes at non-scholarship colleges and high schools are saying it’s time they have access to such coaching, too. “Many of the smaller schools are realizing the importance of having a full-time position,” Stiggins says. “The good athletic programs in the country are understanding the value and the role of the strength and conditioning coach.”
That value includes stronger, quicker, more agile athletes who are less likely to become injured. “A lot of athletic programs are paying well over $1 million a year in treating injuries,” Stiggins says. “One school can easily have a couple dozen athletes nursing knee injuries. But if you can stabilize that joint and make it more durable through strength work, you can save the department lots of money.”
A strength and conditioning coach also gives athletes a way to improve outside of working with the sport coach. “With a good strength and conditioning coach, athletes also gain a new sense of mental toughness,” says Stiggins.
THE HIRING PROCESS
The first stumbling block most administrators encounter in hiring a strength coach is money. How can a school afford to hire another staff member at a time of shrinking budgets?
One approach high schools have taken is to fund the position by charging community members to use the weightroom and funneling that money toward the strength and conditioning coach’s salary. Another idea is to have a local exercise supplier sponsor the weightroom and the strength coach’s salary in return for advertising and promotions at your sporting events.
“Determine what companies are nearby and try to establish a business relationship with them,” suggests Mike Nitka, Director of Strength and Conditioning at Muskego (Wis.) High School. “These companies are very interested in helping out high schools right now.”
The second stumbling block is finding the right person for the job. The ideal hire is someone accredited by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach (CSCS). This ensures that the coach knows how to design sport-specific programs and understands all safety concerns involved with lifting weights.
“A certified strength and conditioning coach gives you liability protection in the weightroom,” says Bruce Harbach, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Wilson (Pa.) High School. “A lot of things can happen—weights can drop on feet or come off the bar—and you’ve got to be aware of that. Someone with a CSCS will know how to avoid accidents.”
In addition, a lift is safe only if it is properly executed. Certified coaches know the best ways to teach proper lifting form and know how to correct an injury-causing technique.
Tom Battaglia, Coordinator of Strength and Conditioning at Monmouth University, agrees that credentials are a key component, but adds that being a strength coach is as much an art as a science. “This is a hands-on profession,” says Battaglia. “The ideal candidate has to have a blend of experience in both physiology and coaching. You have to be in the weightroom, building a rapport with the athletes and pushing them to do their best, which only comes with experience.”
You also want to hire a strength coach who can work with the specific student-athletes at your school. “Are your candidates prepared to coach a variety sports?” offers Nitka. “Are they prepared to coach girls? Are they prepared to coach adolescents?
“Sometimes athletic directors get the idea that if they bring in an ex-professional athlete, everything’s going to work out great,” Nitka continues. “Well, that coach’s training methods may be at a level that you can’t break down for adolescents.”
At Emory University, Associate Director of Athletics and Recreation Jennifer McDowell looked for a certified coach who had experience with Division III athletes and hired Steve Lewis, who came on board in the summer of 2003. “Steve had worked at both Division I and Division III,” McDowell says. “And that was something really important to us—that he understand the Division III mentality.”
At the high school level, a strength coach needs to know how to supervise people in that particular age group. “Every time I open up that door, of the 200 kids signed up, there’s one knucklehead trying to do something that’s not in their strength program. Or there will be a small group of kids daring or testing each other,” Nitka says. “Make sure the strength coach you hire won’t just sit behind a desk. From the moment that door opens up and the lights go on, that coach should be in perpetual motion.”
Many schools utilize an assistant football coach as a strength coach, which has both pros and cons. The negative is that this coach is often too focused on the football team to design an effective program for other student-athletes.
However, Mike Nitka is one example of how the situation can work. Nitka started Muskego High’s strength-training program 28 years ago when he was an assistant football coach at the school, and he gradually expanded from working with football players to training all athletes at the school.
While working toward his master’s degree in exercise physiology, Nitka took his classroom lessons and applied them to his athletes. “Everything the professors were saying was improving our athletic performance and reducing our team’s injuries,” Nitka says. “Then I realized that what we were doing with football players wasn’t the same thing we needed to do for wrestlers. I had to study how to train different athletes. With the success we were having in those two sports, sure enough, the basketball coach was knocking on my door asking, ‘Can you get us going too?’”
If finding a certified strength coach is not possible in your area, consider asking an assistant coach or faculty member to become educated on the topic and grow into the position. At Bangor High, Bailey didn’t receive a single resume when he advertised an opening for a strength coach. So he took on the role himself.
“I said I’d be willing to put in the time to learn,” Bailey says. “I knew there was a lot of stuff I had to educate myself on above and beyond putting the weights on and saying, ‘This is what you do.’ So I’m learning and getting better at it with each season.”
EVERYONE ON BOARD
Once a strength coach is on staff, you’ll need to get sport coaches on board too. “Coaches can be fickle,” Nitka says. “If they did something themselves one year and had success, they’ll anticipate success the next year. I’d suggest not forcing a strength coach on sport coaches. Have the strength coach work with the coaches and the teams that support him or her and slowly show the others why the program is successful.”
Ralph Boettger, Athletic Director at Dryden (N.Y.) High School, took the opposite path, telling his sport coaches that he was implementing a department-wide strength and conditioning program and that participation on some level was mandatory. At the same time, he told coaches that he wanted their feedback as the plan was put into place. “It’s really important for the athletic director to say, ‘Here’s what I’d like to try. We’re going to do this on a trial basis and after that we’ll see if it’s working,” he says.
“You have to convince sport coaches that they won’t have to sacrifice gym or court time,” Boettger continues. “You’re going to have to break down some barriers.”
One way Boettger did this was by dispelling certain myths. He assured student-athletes they wouldn’t lose their shooting or throwing accuracy and they wouldn’t grow huge muscles they didn’t want. Boettger also had the football coach and track coach at Dryden on board early, promoting the program to the rest of the teams. “Every coach wants to succeed and I’m hearing more and more people say, ‘They’re doing so well, we’d better get involved in this,’” he says.
Battaglia advises strength coaches to create realistic goals for strength programs. “Some sport coaches are expecting the doors to open and all of a sudden they’re going to win championships,” he says. “When I was hired, I said that my goal is to raise the athletes to their maximum potential and keep them on the field where they can become better as athletes. Coaches are happy with that and the feedback has been very positive.”
Along with getting the support of coaches, it’s important that athletes buy into the program. While most athletes are eager to start strength and conditioning programs, John Damato, Head Football and Strength Coach at Hamilton (Wis.) High School, says they will stick with the workouts only if they see results.
“The rigors of having a strength program that demands kids to stay after school for two hours isn’t going to happen,” Damato says. “I think about 45 minutes after school four days a week works for kids. Keep it short and sweet and intense so they can go home and do their studies or go to work.
“We live in a society where the kids need to see results quickly,” Damato continues. “You have to evaluate and test the programs that you’re running. If a kid doesn’t see improvement after six weeks, he’s not going to lift anymore.”
Damato also takes the time to explain the whys behind the lifts to his student-athletes. “As a strength coach working with different student-athletes, you have to do some selling,” he says. “You’re going to have to tell them the advantages of why they’re lifting. And that they’re not just doing a lift because everybody else is doing it—they’re making these movements because they’re applicable to their sport.”
You can also get student-athletes on board by doing some simple things. At Dryden, Boettger asked his student-athletes to help paint the weightroom (offering a pizza lunch to all volunteers), which has helped them take ownership of the room. He also makes copies of articles he finds on weight training and leaves them in special folders in the weightroom for athletes to take home and read.
The overall key is to make strength and conditioning an integral part of the athletic department, with the strength coach a respected member of the staff. From there, it’s only a matter of time until you see stronger, less injury-prone athletes on your teams.
Sidebar:
Getting Personal
With the growth of the fitness industry, some student-athletes are turning to personal trainers to help them with strength and conditioning. However, if their school has a strength program in place already, problems can arise. Participating in more than one training program can put too much strain on an athlete’s body, which can lead to overuse injuries.
“We don’t encourage the use of personal trainers simply because we think our athletes get enough training with us,” says Bruce Harbach, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Wilson (Pa.) High School.
Mike Nitka, Director of Strength and Conditioning at Muskego (Wis.) High School, also advises his student-athletes against using personal trainers. “The parents know I’m giving their kids 100 percent of my attention,” Nitka says. “There really is no need for them to go outside and seek individual training. The trainer’s philosophy probably isn’t the same as ours. It’s a business for some people, and for me this is a career, a profession.”
However, if there is communication between the school’s strength coach and the personal trainer, the situation can work out well, especially when offseason rules restrict the athlete from working with the school’s strength coach. “I’ve had situations where an athlete goes to a personal trainer and says, ‘My strength coach gave me this workout,’ and the personal trainer then administers my program,” says Tom Battaglia, Coordinator of Strength and Conditioning at Monmouth University. “They help the athlete choose their loads, something I can’t do in the offseason because of NCAA regulations.”
Resources
www.nsca-lift.org
The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) certifies strength and conditioning specialists and provides research and resources to both members and the general public. It also has high school and collegiate special interest groups.
www.cscca.org
The Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa) emerged in 2000, when a group of full-time collegiate strength and conditioning coaches put together a professional association specific to the college coach. Their Web site houses information on maximizing athletic performance and the latest news on collegiate strength training.
www.AthleticSearch.com/about.html
Athletic Management’s sister publication, Training & Conditioning, offers several articles each issue on strength and conditioning. An archive of its articles can be accessed at the above address.