Earlier this week, someone in our circle passed away in his early 30s.  This really hit me hard because not only was he in his 30s, but he dealt with challenges for a while and they stemmed from poor coaching as a youth/college athlete coupled with a bad healthcare experience. 

This individual’s quality of life was severely damaged, and he ultimately lost his life because of poor decisions his coaches made.  He was pushed hard during his training and suffered through multiple bouts of back pain from lifting.  To control the pain he was in, he was given an opioid which ultimately led to addiction. 

Two things are wrong here: 1. He was given an opioid to suppress pain, but 2. He was in such incredible pain in the first place because of how he was coached during his time in athletics.

So, if you’re coaching middle school, high school, or college, recognize that you have a serious responsibility to help your players thrive and avoid this situation.  By no means is it easy, but people’s lives are at stake.  Below are helpful tips to keep your players safe and help them reach their full athletic potential.

Stop doing Olympic lifts

The clean and snatch look cool and of course do help build explosiveness, but they’re so technical and even if you’re not sustaining an actual injury during the lift itself, you’re doing plenty damage if form is incorrect. Unless you’re a certified strength coach, seriously consider stopping these.  There are several good alternatives just as effective at building explosiveness without putting athletes at as high of a risk for injury, so do those.  They still need to be coached well to develop good form, but are less technical and easier to do safely.  Making sure you’re using an appropriate weight is also key.  Regardless of the exercise, if you’re using too much weight, it’s a recipe for pain.  Good replacement exercises include the kettlebell swing, trap Bar Deadlift, jump squat with trap bar, and for some the push press.  The trap bar is especially great because you can jump with weight as a challenge, then drop the bar before landing (on pads) and land with just body weight.  Again, form needs to be on point.  If you’re rounding your back, seeing knees cave in, or weight shifting to the toes, these are all bad and will start causing pain over time.

Prioritize perfect form over progressing in resistance

Call out those micro-movements that suggest imperfection! Progress slowly and comfortably.  While this is said all the time, it’s easier said than done because we all believe that lifting heavier will make us stronger and no one wants to feel weak or tell their player they’re weak. 

I’m going to challenge you on this paradigm.  We assume that lifting heavier, faster, or for more reps will translate to better athletic performance. Do you actually know this to be true? I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “champions are made in the gym.” And most people translate this too, “Champions are made by lifting and working as heavy and hard as possible in the gym.” If you’re a 17 yr old 5’10 male varsity basketball player that increased his squat from 185 to 215, does that translate to more baskets, better defense, better passing, or more rebounds?

If this is the paradigm that you approach your coaching with, then you’ll probably let a slight forward shift onto the toes or a slight knee cave go if that means your player is pushing more weight. 

What athleticism really is though, is the ability to control body movements, express power through those movements, understand the game you’re playing and make the right decisions based on that understanding.  Imagine if you saw a basketball player shoot a free throw doing this: as they descend, they get up on their toes, their knees cave, then they accelerate up unbalanced with their hips raising first followed by their shoulders, and finally releasing the shot.  That sounds like a terrible shot.  You wouldn’t tell them to go do more squats to improve. You would coach them to move properly.  The same thing is true in the weight room, you need to perfect your movements to improve athleticism.  Every incorrect movement is an indication your athlete has a weakness with body control.  That lack of body control is what needs to be fixed to play better, not lifting more weight with poor control.

How much to push our athletes in the weight room

Of course, there are plenty times when athletes really do need to improve their strength to improve injury resilience and sport performance.  If that same basketball player above is only squatting 95 pounds, that’s an area to develop.  To paraphrase one of the greatest martial artists of all time, George St. Pierre, you need to get to a certain level of fitness, then after that you need to master your sport.  This is such a powerful statement coming from an elite fighter.  You’d think strength and endurance would make or break you in a fight, but in reality, it’s perfecting your movement form and understanding your opponent and various scenarios after getting to a comfortable level of fitness.  The same is true with most sports.  There’s a point where fitness is less important and focusing on movement and game understanding should be prioritized.  The exceptions to this are sports like powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and track.  Even in track though, working towards movement perfection is key. 

Vertical jump is a good indication of overall explosiveness and a key measure for tons of sports.  Below is a very rough guideline for standing vertical jump height that’s a good target for various levels.  By the end of an athlete’s high school career, I’d suggest aiming for a 16”-25” vertical depending on your gender and sport.  At the college level, this wouldn’t be a terrible vertical range either, but depending on your specific sport, position, and division, aiming a little higher would be fair.

You can easily measure vertical with some chalk and a painted drywall wall.  Mark the athlete’s full height with 1 arm extended overhead (mark at their fingertips), have them put a bunch of chalk on their fingers then jump and swipe the wall.  Measure the distance between the 2 marks.

If your athlete is trending towards the range above, it’s so important they progress at a slow comfortable pace with a strong focus on movement technique.  At this point, their increased strength gains aren’t going to make as big of an impact on their game as sport specific coaching and movement coaching will.  On the flip side, If the player is below this mark for vertical, then focusing on strength training will likely help him improve his game and improve injury resilience.

How to tell what’s gritty and what’s dangerous

If you’re seeing your athletes move really well and lifting with great form, it’s okay to push them to get stronger. Grit is good!  It really only becomes a serious problem if their form breaks down or they have intolerances that even good form won’t help (think prior injury that’s still healing or other health conditions)

Especially with our athletes, they want to push themselves and want to improve, so we really have to be disciplined with our coaching here to help them improve but not hurt themselves.  Below are signs the athlete is really close to their max and should stop:

1. They say they’re done. If they say it, respect it. If you really think they have more in them, chat with them after the workout and ask what they were feeling. Athletes will stop to rest sometimes and maybe have more in the bag, but when they expressly say they’re done, they’re typically done.
2. Their form breaks, even in the slightest
3. They blank stare and get quiet, this is especially true if this athlete is typically pretty energetic
4. They’re getting too caught up in an unusually energetic atmosphere and lift well beyond their previous workouts due to adrenaline. As a coach, you want to create energy to get athletes feeling good and feeling strong.  You’ve got to realize though when there’s too much energy and your athletes feel close to unstoppable and get a little crazy. 
5. Unusually strong expressive grimace. This is kind of an easy one. If you’re in incredible pain to the point you can’t control your expressions, then stop.  If they say they’re good, tell them to give you their “no pain face”.  Then if they grimace again, stop them.

Final Thoughts

I love working out, I chose training as my career for heaven’s sake, I love it, and I will continue exercising forever!  This past week’s events were just a strong reminder of how much of a responsibility we have over people’s lives and that we need to stay diligent with our coaching.  I hope this article gave you some good tips and I’m happy to chat more if you need any help!

Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments to revolutionsportsclub19@gmail.com and I’ll personally respond.  This is such an important topic, I’m more than happy to come do any clinics if you think it’ll help, or chat with any athletes.

Cheers,

Rob