Being told by the football coach that I need to do the football offseason weight program or else I cannot use the weight

Also, it's a myth that linemen and strength athletes couldn't benefit from 50 miles per week if they had the time to include it without injury.

Multiple time Mr. Olympia Vince Coleman does 1 hour of aerobic exercise almost every morning. He usually bikes. It sure hasn't hurt his strength or muscle mass.

I believe it mitigates many of the side effects from his steroid use.

Junk Master wrote:

Also, it's a myth that linemen and strength athletes couldn't benefit from 50 miles per week if they had the time to include it without injury.

Multiple time Mr. Olympia Vince Coleman does 1 hour of aerobic exercise almost every morning. He usually bikes. It sure hasn't hurt his strength or muscle mass.

I believe it mitigates many of the side effects from his steroid use.

Does 1hr of aerobic exercise every day = running 50mpw

Turksed wrote:

Junk Master wrote:

Also, it's a myth that linemen and strength athletes couldn't benefit from 50 miles per week if they had the time to include it without injury.

Multiple time Mr. Olympia Vince Coleman does 1 hour of aerobic exercise almost every morning. He usually bikes. It sure hasn't hurt his strength or muscle mass.

I believe it mitigates many of the side effects from his steroid use.

Does 1hr of aerobic exercise every day = running 50mpw

Well an hour of running at 8 min. mile pace a day will get you 50 mpw easily.

Not many lineman can run AN 8 minute mile, or should they.

How many lineman can do 20 pullups or dips? Guess the reason they don't do pushups and prefer the bench press?

highschooltrackcoach wrote:

...

I don't want to do the program because I don't think it is specific enough to cover an entire track team.

Thoughts?

That's the best response... optimal training requires specificity, and you are hoping to use the weight room to accomplish different things for athletes in different event groups. Pushing against a lineman is one task, but explosively putting the shot is another. A strong core for the mile is another... etc.

This is so frustrating...and sounds so familiar. I coach jumps, but have run into having to use the school's strength coach for our weights. People never recognize there is no difference in prescribing weight workouts & running workouts, the stimulus needs to be applied simultaneously and cohesively. The body doesn't recognize WHERE the stress is coming from - speed work/bounding/plyometrics/weighted jumps/power cleans...For some reason, once a track coach steps foot in a weight room they're all of a sudden "out of their element." I think being a L1 coach is important, go back to your AD with the compatible/complimentary training argument...they must go hand in hand. Your track work, medball, general strength, warm-up/cool down, stretching/therapy is all prescribed by the coach..why WOULDN'T the strength work? Unless BFS has a long distance annual plan you can work from, you're going to coach your athletes how you see fit. If that means using a different room for your workouts, so be it. I doubt any strength coach is taking the time to come watch the quality of interval work you're doing, and then adjusting the weight workout accordingly!

Tell these idiots to leave you alone. You are the track coach. You coach track - all elements of training for track. The football coach does not tell you how to coach your sport, unless you get to meddle in his stupid sport.

So tell these guys to mind their own business.

I would also try convince his top players to join the glee club and quit football. That would really hit him where he lives.

Man your kids don't need to be in the weight room in the summer. Give them a break. I bet a lot of them work jobs and they need to fit 35-55 miles a week of running around that.

During the season make your own gym. Pull up bar, dip bar, incline bench for situps. And a lift bench. Screw the weight room. The little skinny twerps can get all the strength they need for their 16-18 minute 5ks with solid core and circuits of pull-ups, dips, push ups.

experienced coach wrote:

Stay calm, have a sense of humor and get their "edict" in writing and then bring it to the attention of their bosses. They just are being territorial and don't want anyone else playing with their toys.

This sounds like the best advice to me. Email and ask for a clarification of the official policy. Then compose a simple reply that explains why you think it's not appropriate for your team. And a possible compromise/counter proposal.

If they still insist on their own ways, then take it to the prinicpal or the school board or whatever. Email is important to get it "on the record" instead of just word of mouth.

Junk Master wrote:

Also, it's a myth that linemen and strength athletes couldn't benefit from 50 miles per week if they had the time to include it without injury.

Multiple time Mr. Olympia Vince Coleman does 1 hour of aerobic exercise almost every morning. He usually bikes. It sure hasn't hurt his strength or muscle mass.

I believe it mitigates many of the side effects from his steroid use.

8/10

That was pretty good, but the phrase "I believe it mitigates..." gave you away.

But what am I saying? This is LetsRun, where someone will always advocate for the value of long, slow running or aerobic development.

To the OP, this also happens with many college programs, where the track/XC coaches are all but required to utilize the strength and conditioning staff in designing their programs. In some cases, track coaches are not allowed to supervise their own athletes in the weight rooms.

Which is, of course, silly. As one of the posters above noted, weight training has to be an integrated part of the overall training load and specific to the task.

Most collegiate S&C coaches are better than taking BSF out of the box, but sometimes not much. Many (most?) S&C people are strongly influenced by power-lifting training protocols, which they then "adapt" to other sports. The problem is that power lifting is really specific only to, well, power lifting. There are others, of course, like Jim Radcliffe at Oregon who have done an excellent job of designing programs by moving backwards from the movements required for each sport. Not coincidentally, Radcliffe started out with track athletes.

Another thought for the OP is that schools adopt BSF because it's sold as a safe, comprehensive program. Now that there are S&C specialists out there, even at HS's, I think many schools feel exposed if they don't have an "expert" in the weight room. BSF in a sense serves that role, allowing administrators to protect themselves by saying "We only allow our athletes to follow this safe, proven program".

So demonstrate that your program is safe, and proven (by the standards of our sport), emphasize your Level 1, and you might get somewhere.

Azaleas wrote:

body weight exercises are borderline useless.

Did you run that by John Cook? 'Cause I bet he'd beg to differ.

Say something like this to your AD and see what he says-- "Can I have this policy regarding the weight room in writing so that i can distribute it to the parents? I imagine that a lot of them are going to wonder why their kids are not allowed in the weight room any more."

IMO you should keep doing what is best for your student athletes, and focus your efforts on coaching. Let the parents deal with this crap, I imagine the AD and school administration will actually listen to them.

Here is my issue with these types of programs. WHO is running them? Often, the ony qualifications the 'strength' coach has had, is being a high school athlete. They have no degree, no training, no nothing. I would NEVER allow the football staff to run a program for my athletes. I have much more training and background in strength training than they do. I know that I am unusual, but there are hardly any coaches out there that have the skills to properly train their athletes in the weight room. What does a math teacher know?

Get your kids outside and have them do body weight stuff. Or bring the equipment outside. Why do they need to be doing Oly lifts anyways? Weight training is not one size fits all.

Interestingly, my son, who coaches my throwers, is a just graduated collegiate football player and he doesn't even do that type of training anymore. It bulked him up great for football, but now that he is throwing again, he needs to get rid of some of that mass.

Stick to your guns. If you are uncomfortable with that program, then keep your athletes out of the weight room.

I'd suggest just getting some medicine balls and doing stuff outside. We had a simlilar experience with the football spring training stuff and didn't have access to the weight room. I didn't think it was such a big deal for the distance runners, but for sprinters they really needed more structured workout and not just body weight stuff.

This has nothing to do with who has the best weight program.

It is about legal liability and nothing else. A weight room is a place for law suits.

Weights are not always necessary - unless you are a thrower. Even sprinters can get by with plyometrics.

Putting on muscle does not always help athleticism or athletic results.

Cleveland Park wrote:

Say something like this to your AD and see what he says-- "Can I have this policy regarding the weight room in writing so that i can distribute it to the parents? I imagine that a lot of them are going to wonder why their kids are not allowed in the weight room any more."

IMO you should keep doing what is best for your student athletes, and focus your efforts on coaching. Let the parents deal with this crap, I imagine the AD and school administration will actually listen to them.

This could work. Except...

Except that high schools generally have an athletic pecking order. Football is almost always at the top for boys, followed usually by basketball and baseball. The other sports sort themselves out in the second or third tier of importance.

The issue here is not that the track kids are prohibited from using the weight room. Is that they must use the "official program"

The OP is a pro. He has experience, specific training in coaching and training theory, and high-level experience. He is correct in his assessment that BFS is not right for his whole team.

But that doesn't matter here. And in the hierarchy of many high schools, knowing more than the decision makers actually hurts.

Having parents add pressure is clearly a last ditch effort. I can't think of any AD who would be thankful for it. Moreover, it's not likely to be heard because the voices of the parents from track and XC just don't matter. Rather than being moved to change, the AD is probably more likely to punish the track coach for letting this happen (specifically) and stepping out of his place in the pecking order (explicitly).

Pecking order does have something to do with it, but the fact that I never took ownership of the weight room when it was renovated was probably a bigger issue. It's petty, but the football coach went 0-9 and I think he is acting out of desperation to turn things around. I've always had a good (not great) team, and in track I always consider getting kids to the state meet to be top priority...not necessarily winning team titles (although, we have won meets and are definitely an above average team). I have a simple and specific weight program that I feel works, and since I can only expect so much from my kids, after all they are kids not adults, I feel it is much more important to get the most out of them in actual running work. Lifting comes secondary. I could develop a much deeper routine, but I don't think they can handle that much work. They need recovery as much as they need the workouts.

I met with my principal today and voiced my concerns. She was largely unaware of what was happening. I blamed my AD for allowing such a backward system to take root, and I also slammed the football coach for using the weight room as a place to run a year-round football program, taking away my star sprinters by telling them that "track doesn't lift enough", all while using an article titled "Training the Multi-Sport Athlete" to push his new school-wide weight program. Ironic because his "multi-sport" ideology is making kids into year-round football players.

We'll see where it gets us....

You don't need the weight room that much man. They are a track team. Body weight exercises and plyos will be enough. If you can't take that, then buy a few medicine balls and dumbbells.

Which exercises do you need the weight room for?