High School Curriculum

[Shiva Kaul]

I suggest orienting the course around "how" rather than "why", eliminating parts 2 and 3. Muscle insertions, fiber types, and moment arms are just not meaningful without intuition derived from experience under the bar. You could replace these parts with an introduction to the gym environment and equipment.

Unless this is a small elective class, it's way too ambitious to run the students through an NLP, if only because of your own time constraints as a coach.

You may need to write your own lecture notes, since the textbook is meant to be comprehensive and precise rather than didactic.

[HeartofDarkness]

Thanks for these suggestions. It seems likely that you are correct about removing parts 2 and 3, and perhaps other parts, too. I'm open to paring it down. I erred on the side of being comprehensive. I will be making a pitch to the academic dean for this class and more detail will be helpful to impress upon them the value of the course.

If I were to start teaching the class right now, I would need to be prepared to leave some of these objectives on the cutting room floor and have thought ahead of time about what should be the highest priority and what could get the axe if we are running short of time. I'm shooting for the ideal with this document and am fully prepared to take your advice by cutting out things which a little lower on the totem pole of importance. We are a classical school and so the class as I have it on this document is arranged to fulfill the academic philosophy of our school. The "why" is important to us. But the "why" need not always be as detailed as it could be. We would not expect SSC level mastery. They are only high schoolers after all, and if they are interested in the material they can certainly study in more detail on their own time.

Regarding the NLP, I want the main component of the class to be to teach the students to get stronger and facilitate that for them. If we could only do one thing, it would be to lift barbells and grow stronger, even if they learned nothing else. I would estimate a total of 20ish students to opt into a weightlifting program. We are a very small school and not all grades have a PE block in their schedule. I would anticipate a slow start to the class. Perhaps the first couple of weeks being instruction and close observation of each lifter. After that, I would estimate that most students will probably be able to perform most of the lifts without someone watching their every rep. But they will still get regular feedback as a coach will be present at every workout. I do not have rose-colored glasses about the students. Many, if not most, will apply themselves to an NLP inconsistently or in a mediocre fashion. There will be some who do very well and they may inspire others to get on it. But, I know from personal experience that even an undisciplined student who does a mediocre job with a decent strength program can still have life-altering results, even if they do fall short of their potential. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly. Hopefully we can begin to build a culture that values strength and then we can get more students to try and do it well.

I am of like mind about the lecture notes, also. While I think it would be great if they all read the blue book, our school is very academically heavy and they have an excess of reading to do in other classes already. So I would need to distill down to the minimum useful knowledge and prepare handouts for anything I would want to quiz them on or have them memorize. I would not anticipate much of that though. I would hope the knowledge can be presented in a way that is constantly reinforced by life in the gym. For instance, they may need to study the names and locations of muscles, but I hope we are naturally using those terms in the weight room as we discuss the lifts anyway.

Thanks again for your feedback. It's already helping.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Do you know how to coach the lifts?

[TommyGun]

I have two high school seniors and hear how bad the phys ed block is, so I am sympathetic. Maybe a small private school has some chance of success, but it still might be like herding cats. But like anything else, if a few students learn the movements it may be worthwhile. And toss most of that lecture stuff. When I took my son to a SS squat and deadlift camp he remembered nothing of the lecture but a lot of the coaching.

But it is very difficult having high schoolers be consistent with anything, especially when their short lived enthusiasm wanes.
They haven't learned that you sometimes have to do things even if you are not in the mood. That concept is alien to them.

I would be inclined to support an afterschool program or strength training club which self selects motivated students. But then you run into the problems with the sport practices, etc. I don't know. I like where you are going but its not easy to implement at scale to a young audience not accustomed to doing difficult physical movements which are not inherently fun. Maybe Rip is right about the best way to spread the program: narrowcast to a target audience that is motivated, able and willing. This audience is generally (although not always) adults.

But I truly wish you luck.

[HeartofDarkness]

Do you know how to coach the lifts?

Yes, I believe so. I have coached friends informally. I have read the blue book twice all the way through and reference it regularly. I consume most of the articles and videos and listen to every podcast. I have also read Practical Programming once and I am currently reading Barbell Prescription. I am coming to the end of my own NLP. Also, my plan is to attend at least one seminar before the class begins to shore up weak spots and have a critique of my platform coaching. I don't believe that I could pass the SSC oral board if I were to take it today, but I am taking the study seriously. Should it come to pass that the class doesn't materialize, I will simply have enriched myself by the study. Power clean is the lift which I have the most trouble coaching.

[HeartofDarkness]

Thanks for your well wishes. I hope it works, too.

I recall a story that Rip told on a podcast once, or maybe more than once, about how the SS method began to take shape in the early days. He recognized that he had about 6 sessions with a new gym member before they got bored and quit coming in, unless he could find a way to keep them interested. Weight loss doesn't happen that fast; aesthetic improvement same deal. Strength gains is the answer. And so he applied what is now the SS method and people got results practically immediately.

I am hopeful that for a young man who comes in with enthusiasm, about the time that enthusiasm starts to wear off, he will have added 30 lbs or more to his squat work sets. Or 15 or 20 lbs to his press. What better place then a weight room to learn that hard work is worthy pursuing. When all your teachers tell you your work will pay off some day, but it's so far away you can't see it; but then you go lift, and two days later you are demonstrably stronger than before. It starts to really teach lessons that regular classes just can't. It won't work for everyone, and those that won't lift may be invited to return to general PE class. How much would you give to have a class of athletes all paying close attention to their GPAs and having their grade in PE tied directly to adding 5lbs to that barbell every time they come in? Are you doing your "homework?" Did you eat enough yesterday? Did you go to sleep on time?

I remember my own time goofing around in a high school weight room. Periodically being asked to put up a 1RM to see if I had gotten stronger. Using some percentage of a 1RM from 6 weeks ago as a way to calculate my work set weights. No objective, visible, predictable and steady progress. Yes, the SS program is boring to a teenager. It's plodding. It's trudging. It's routine. But you can actually see progress. It's not even slow progress! They will really get stronger and it will show up on the court and elsewhere. For many, this may be their first experience with anything that so richly rewards their suffering. The ones who suffer well, will get the strongest. Almost no fitness propaganda is in their brains yet. There will be one or two, or maybe I'll get lucky and get four or five that take it seriously and really try. It's for them that I am preparing this class. SS has changed the trajectory of many people's entire lives. I have to at least attempt to bring this to my students. It may be a dismal failure, but it's a worthy pursuit.

And besides all that, our school is getting a weight room either way, so we may as well move black iron circles and barbells in and occupy it before some functional fitness goon sets up shop in there.

[HeartofDarkness]

Just a quick update on this, the varsity boy's basketball coach (our school's flagship sport) has eagerly accepted my offer to train his team during the summer and has named me the "(volunteer) strength and conditioning coach ." I think this is a good opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of barbells and the approach I intend to take is to put them on an NLP. Our weight room will not be open for about 6 weeks so in the interval we are only working out two days a week and that involves some diagnostics, some improvised workouts and some workouts designed to be mostly just fun for the boys. There are no real expectations of strength gains during this period. I want to measure the standing vertical jump, 40 yd, and 100 yd sprint, and 1-mile runs pre-strength training and again after we have been going for about 2 months. I have already discussed with the coach that there should be no expectation of improving SVJ more than very marginally as a result of weight training and that if they do improve it is probably just because the athletes are aging and reaching their innate athletic potential. I am hopeful we will see some noticeable improvement in sprint speeds after we get the opportunity to deadlift for a few weeks.

I have also managed to weasel my way into the equipment-buying process. We had an offer from a grandparent of a student to donate 10 different weight machines which were deadlined from an apartment complex gym. I offered to arrange to get them and then made a strong recommendation that we pass on them altogether. They were not even in a condition to be sold, unfortunately. The men's and women's basketball coaches also coincidentally direct the school's high school PE program and I was very pleased to learn that, after turning in my equipment wishlist, they pretty much asked for the same things: racks, iron plates, bumper plates, bars, and the accessories needed to run a barbell gym like belts, clamps, etc.

The structure which will house the weight room needs a new roof put on, which should be done by the end of April. That is all we lack to get started with proper workouts. When we get word that we are moving in imminently, I will probably begin doing squat, deadlift, and press instruction with the empty bar at our current location so that when we get into the gym with proper racks and plates we can review the instruction and get on with lifting workloads a little bit quicker. I'll update again when we get started.

As always, I am happy to have any additional advice from anyone interested in giving it.

[VNV]

This is interesting. Thanks.

[HeartofDarkness]

Updating again. Our future weight room is being repaired. It's an old heavy equipment repair garage with a man-door, two garage roll-up doors, and running water. One window, concrete floors, no A/C. I feel pampered. We are replacing the roof and then it will be ready for move-in.

Our Parent Service Organization has released some funds to us to get gym equipment and I have been asked to do the buying. We only have $4k at the moment and I think that will be enough to get it functioning but it will be congested since we will have about 15 guys working at any given time. Hope to add more lifting stations as more funds become available. I have a guy looking for me for used stuff that is good enough to get us started and stretch that out as far as possible. If anybody here has good contacts for getting used stuff I would be happy to hear about them. We are located in middle TN, I know shipping is an expensive factor so the closer the better. We will be making some calls to see if anyone would be willing to donate old stuff to us as some gyms that are deadlining zero book value equipment may get more value out of donating than trying to sell. I am always lurking on local sales pages looking for iron/steel plates also. We shall see we can do.

In the meantime, we have had our first team meeting to discuss the upcoming strength program. I have secured the pledge of the head coach that until mid-October, I will get the team Mon, Weds, Fri and they will not have any formal exercise on Tues. They will have low-intensity fundamental drills on Thursdays. The boys on the team are very interested in the promise that they can actually add weight to the bar every workout. Their attitudes are very positive. Most have never heard any promise so concrete about working out before. For some, this is the first exposure they have to lifting anything anyway. We have discussed the lifts but have not started coaching them since the only one we can actually do is deadlift at this point with no racks. We have discussed the two-factor model and how strength adaptation will help them with their sport and with their life in general. We have discussed recovery management and I have explained the "First three questions" to them. We have taken preliminary measurements for height, weight, 40m and 100m sprint time, and vertical leap. Any other diagnostics that would be helpful to gather before we get started? Any other suggestions for things to do before we actually start the program? I am hoping that next month we will be able to move in and get lifting started in earnest.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Good progress. Any welders associated with the program? Might be cheaper to fab some racks.