I teach and will be coaching track and field at a small urban high school. The school has no track and no gymnasium. The resources I do have are a cafeteria, parking lot, and park (1/2 mile away). Also, the majority of the students are from low income homes. Has anyone else coached in similar conditions? What suggestions do you make for coaching in this environment? I plan on starting an intramural winter program after Thanksgiving (two days a week) and then a full program in the spring.
I spent four years coaching distance in similar conditions. I used the roads/sidewalks in the surrounding area and managed to avoid any mishaps with cars. For speed sessions, we did fartlek and tempo workouts on for our weekday speedwork and I would meet them on Saturday at different tracks to do those sessions. Our sprint coaches did pretty much the same thing, except they marked off 50/100/200m in the parking lot and used that for their kids.
The more difficult part was the student population. We were predominantly low-income with minimal parental involvement--high on talent, low on motivation. Strict rules were essential for keeping the kids at practice and making sure they didn't disgrace the school.
In the end, we were moderately successful. In our 1st year, we had only 5 kids, then 15 in our 2nd, 30 in our 3rd, and 40 in my final year there. The following year, they finally got a track and things really took off.
I went to Providence where we didnt have a track and facilities were crap (much better now ive heard).
But just have the kids run outside...do pushups and situps...alot of core during the winter...Make them understand they dont need that to be good. I came in not great and left not too bad...
We actually did intervals in the halls. There was a loop which was about 200 meters. It was after school. You just had to make sure that the janitor stayed out of the way. Even if you just have a long straight you could probably do intervals.
Has anyone done much plyometric work in this type of environment?