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Strength Report - CITADEL’S OFF-SEASON STRENGTH & CONDITIONING PROGRAMby: Donnell BoucherS&C Coach, The Citadel © More from this issue The winter off-season is the first of two primary development phases in the annual layout of a collegiate football player. The second is the summer. These are the only two periods of the year where no football is being played and training sessions are directed by the strength and conditioning staff. For us at The Citadel, the winter differs slightly from the summer, in terms of our priorities and where they rank. We believe that the better we keep the team physically prepared over the course of the training year, the better our athletes will retain training residuals from season to season, and arrive at camp in a more capable athletic state. However, due to the amount of time before the upcoming season, we reposition our immediate priorities: A Shift in Priorities
While these are the general, physical priorities we set out to achieve, there is a set of goals that supersede these goals all year long, no matter where we are in the training year. These are perhaps more important to us as a strength and conditioning staff than the physical goals, and are coached in various methods during every training session: 1. Learn to live with urgency: Between the start whistle and the final horn, there is NO down time. Every minute of the training session is a race against the clock to see who can learn more, gain more, or gain one more step in the fourth and fifth quarter. 2. Understand your responsibility to your teammates: You are accountable to do YOUR job, as well as assisting where you can to better allow your teammates to do theirs. Sometimes, one person needs a small push to get going in the same direction as everyone else. The more this comes from an athlete instead of the staff, the better. 3. Embrace and effectively deal with conflict, coaching, and competition: Only through constant critiquing and instructing will our athletes improve in training. This is not as simple as getting them to properly squat or run the 40. They need to be notified when their effort is insufficient. Through constantly challenging them, and upholding our standard of performance, we cultivate a competitive atmosphere in which no one can feel comfortable when they are shown up. Everyone looks to out-perform the next guy, even during warm ups, or while sprinting to the next drill.
We will conclude our winter off-season program with a “combine-style” testing period that will be broken up over two days on the week of our first practice. We hold this type of evaluation twice per year – at the conclusion of the winter program, and at the conclusion of the summer program in late July. These evaluations are important to me as a strength coach so I can see where I may be falling short from a programming standpoint and monitor any glaring weaknesses our team may have. By evaluating twice per year, changes can be made from season to season and from position group to position group and help eliminate any shortcomings in development. While these results are critical to the person writing the programs, they are a double-edged sword to the athletes. Yes, they’re important because they show an athlete whether they are or are not progressing, but at the same time they’re dangerous because they can falsely lead a team member to believe his job is done. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. We encourage our players to leave their numbers on the field, and divulge all of their attention to performing well at the REAL test that approaches: tomorrow’s practice. 1. You will accomplish more as a program by training, developing, and enabling your staff members. The five coaches that work for us have the green light to modify the training programs on the fly, should they see fit. We all operate under the same principles and spend plenty of time coordinating and planning for each training session. This has led to a lot of ground getting covered on an individual basis. 2. As a strength coach (or any coach/teacher/leader), the environment is the only thing you really control. So, make sure it is one that promotes urgency, reliability, trust, preparedness, focus, energy, alertness, teamwork, and whatever else you find important. Don’t expect those things to manifest themselves; they need to be cultivated. 3. Extrinsic motivation WORKS. Use it. 4. Breed competitiveness every single day. It is one of the few things, if not the only thing, you can rest assured will transfer onto the field 100%. u
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