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Strength Report – Density Training for the High School Athlete

by: Mark Hoover
Head Coach and Strength and Conditioning Coach, Central Davidson High School (NC)
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Many programs can help make high school athletes stronger, more muscular and even faster. However, if your goal is to train your high school athletes to improve athleticism, flexibility, balance, strength, power and speed, density training is the way to go. Density training is a philosophy of training based on strength coach Charles Staley’s program, “Escalating Density Training”. Since the program was introduced, strength coaches all over the country have been putting together their own versions of this very progressive and outstanding form of training.

I owe 100% of what I know about using density training in my program to Wake Forest’s Ethan Reeve. Ethan is one of the premier strength and conditioning coaches in the nation. Prior to meeting Ethan four years ago, I was a “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” guy. But I was fortunate enough to have coached Ethan’s son. That led to our staff going to visit the Wake Forest facility and observing them working out. What I witnessed was a unique and sound way to train players not just to be powerful and strong, but to train them to be better athletes. From that point, I took Ethan’s version of density training and have put it to work in my strength and conditioning program with increasingly successful results.

Density training is a philosophy in which instead of focusing on the volume of training, you build your strength, power and explosiveness through increasing the work-to-rest ratio of your workouts. Your workouts will be higher sets, using lower reps but in short periods of time and with perfect form and high intensity. For example, a common set-rep range may be three sets of eight reps. Each set will take 45 seconds to a minute to complete. Most strength and conditioning coaches would say would say two minutes rest between sets is the norm, so in a nine minute period you are getting 24 total reps. Since you are doing them in three sets, you are using a weight that allows you to build up intensity. In all likelihood only the final two-three reps are intensive. The other five-six are a build-up. The length of the sets themselves causes you to lose perfect form for all eight reps as fatigue sets in.

Density Training takes that same rep range (24 total reps) and breaks them into, as an example, sets of three reps. Then, a one-minute limit is set for the amount of time between the starting of each set. The amount of weight you do is a percentage of your one-rep max, based on the reps you do. In this instance of three-reps, you aim for an 80-to-85% range. Now your set takes eight minutes. You are getting eight total sets of three reps, so you have met your total rep goal of 24. You have also increased intensity because at 80-85% each set of three gave you at least two intensive reps per set. Instead of getting six-nine total intensive reps, you now have gotten 16 with perfect form as fatigue was not the factor it was in the longer sets. What you have accomplished is increased intensity by increasing the total number of intensive reps, decreasing the time it took to complete those reps and highly increasing the likelihood of completing every rep with superior form and technique.

Now, we repeat this using four lifts per workout, three times a week, varying the percentage of max for each individual lift each day. We vary our lifts as much as possible, always sticking to the goal of having a push lift, a pull lift, an explosive lift and a power lift each day.

We have three percentage ranges we use – speed at 65-75%, power at 80-90% and strength, which we will use a “climb” from 50% to up to 85%. We will rotate those ranges so each range will be hit four times in the three workouts. We will also throw in a one-legged assistance lift a few times a week. We will usually have time for one or two total assistance lifts each day. We train our athletes in 65 minutes or less. (See chart for a typical week in our strength and conditioning classes).



We use six week “micro cycles” and our athletes complete the density training for three weeks. That allows us to increase each percentage range by 5% to hit the entire range (week 1 - speed 65%, week two - 70%, week 3 - 75%, etc.). During the fourth and fifth weeks we change it up and get creative. This would be the time we may throw in some more bodybuilding philosophy and have some “work to failure” sets. The sixth week we max to get our new 100% range and then start over. We will do this macro-cycle from January through June. In July and August we start our three-day-a-week pre-season work.

Once the regular season begins, we will work out three days a week with a shorter but strength-focused micro-cycle. From the end of the season through January, we will go into a “down” cycle in which we greatly restrict the amount of time we spend in the strength room.

The first step in implementing density training in your program is convincing your athletes that your strength and conditioning program is just that and not “weightlifting”, “bodybuilding” or anything else they may see people doing at the local gym. The second and possibly most important step is convincing them that “training to fail” every day is not the most productive way to become a more powerful, more explosive athlete. Use it as a “micro-cycle” within your program. Training to fail is a strong tool. However, understanding that it is just one tool and should not be overused is the key. One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced implementing density training is keeping our athletes from using too much weight. Another key is to use varying exercises. I am always searching for different exercises. We try to build in at least two single leg lifts per week. My goal is to never do the same one in any micro-cycle.

Teaching and preaching proper technique and form for each lift is very important. Too many times I see athletes not going deep on squats because they have been told it’s “bad for the knees”. Train for flexibility! A deep squat will stretch the muscles of the groin and ligaments of the knee. With more flexibility will come injury prevention. We also demand “high elbows” when we finish any clean. Again, flexibility is the key to injury prevention.

I hope I have given you an understanding of the general outline for using density training at the high school level. But this is nowhere near the complete guide to this exciting and successful way to train your athletes. However, I hope you can take this information and build onto it to take your strength and conditioning program to the highest level possible.

About the Author:  Mark Hoover is in his third season as both head football coach and strength and conditioning coach at Central Davidson High School in Lexington, NC. He started his coaching career at General McLane High School (PA), and also served as a graduate assistant at Edinboro University. Hoover is a 1996 graduate of Hiram College.






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