Why are high school coaches idiots????

[Minno5]

I am a strength coach at a local high school, and I am also the head wrestling coach, so I don't mean to clump all coaches in this, but it seems like more than most are complete idiots when it comes to strength training....

One of my best lifters, a basketball and baseball athlete, who has made huge gains in the weight room and has transferred to huge gains on the court/field....he just told me that his baseball coach told the team, specifically him, that they shouldn't be lifting during the season...

Seems like I'm constantly dealing with these coaches that have terrible records as coaches trying to tell kids to not lift, or do stupid unsafe lifts/technique...

Sorry just want to vent to some people who would understand...thanks for listening

[algunos hombre]

Why are high school coaches idiots????

I am a strength coach at a local high school, and I am also the head wrestling coach, so I don't mean to clump all coaches in this, but it seems like more than most are complete idiots when it comes to strength training....

One of my best lifters, a basketball and baseball athlete, who has made huge gains in the weight room and has transferred to huge gains on the court/field....he just told me that his baseball coach told the team, specifically him, that they shouldn't be lifting during the season...

Seems like I'm constantly dealing with these coaches that have terrible records as coaches trying to tell kids to not lift, or do stupid unsafe lifts/technique...

Sorry just want to vent to some people who would understand...thanks for listening

OK, I lol'ed at the title combined with the first part of your first sentence. Just so's you know.

Two responses, one serious and one, well, kinda-sorta serious.

BFS (BiggerFasterStronger) has been fighting this battle in high schools, on the behalf of coaches like you, for about 30 years now. http://www.biggerfasterstronger.com/...nification.pdf Their argument is that the same core lifts (squat, bench, power clean, hex-bar deadlift) should be a part of the HS athlete's training year-round, regardless of sport they participate in, with auxiliary lifts chosen to complement the sport choice.

Do the "best and brightest" coming up from HS to college typically aspire to jobs involving coaching HS kids at sports? Or do they tend to get technical degrees or financial/business degrees and "follow the money?"

[Matt Reynolds]

Uh oh. I smell a Jonny Gold post coming...

For what its worth, Gold and I fight this fight every single day. Being that I don't want to risk my job, I'll keep my mouth shut, though I will say I don't care what your record is in your sport, that doesn't give you any right to coach strength with insufficient knowledge of strength training.

I have met thousands of HS coaches who coach strength. I can name less than 5 who I would ever trust to coach my own kids in the weightroom. 99.9% are pathetic.

[Jonathan Vechet]

Aren't the majority of coaches in general mostly just coaches for their sports with second-hand knowledge of strength and conditioning?

[Minno5]

I am a strength coach first, and I love the sport of wrestling and that's why I coach it.

Most coaches have no clue about strength training, just what they remember doing when they played...it just bothers me cause they think this makes them an expert, but they have never study it or researched it, or even actually did it properly...

[Jonny Gold]

Yeah, i hate to say it, but this isnt going to change... and i am both a HS football coach and strength coach...

Most coaches do what they did in HS or college, and really have no idea if it sucked or not... There is also the concept that if you look at what coaches at championship schools do and pick and choose, you will have a great program...which in reality just turns into a hodge-podge of crap with no purpose or direction...

Head sports coaches can ruin a lot of carefully planned work...Some things I have seen in the last year include having our football players run 400 meter runs (because thats what one of our coaches did at a state champion school when he played)... this is obviously a bad idea for many reasons if you know anything about metabolic pathways, and even a worse idea when our 275lb linemen are also doing this...needless to say i threw a temper tantrum trying to explain why this is moronic (IE, "has it ever been 3rd down and 400 yrds to go?"...and trying to explain that recovering BETWEEN mutiple short bursts with relatively short rest periods is what is necessary for football conditioning, not having long recovery times between long efforts)...the only thing that kept me from committing murder was that at least we werent doing this in the winter... The other part that made this a complete mess was that NO thought was given that all this added stress may need to be accounted for by lowering the volume/intensity of the lifting...Needless to say the next time we maxed i watched 10 kids in a row fail on squats...

We have also had kids who are 105lb 8th graders doing the exact same program as our 240lb senior who benches 405 and runs a 4.5... because clearly they have the same training needs and are on the same level...

I have also had a coach take their players out of our offseason program because "all those squats" are a waste of time... and you then see their athletes begin their workout with lat-pulls followed by wrist curls.... oh well, its their team...

What a school really needs is a Athletic Director with some knowledge in this area, and a Strength coach that understands HOW to coach the lifts and how to put together the most EFFECIENT program possible... (IE Squats/Deadlifts/Properly coached cleans/bench/press...etc.)... The AD then has the strength coach work with the head coaches to program for the sport, with the S/C coach having final say... At least thats what i would do if i was the AD...

[MEbigUsmall]

OK, I lol'ed at the title combined with the first part of your first sentence. Just so's you know.

Two responses, one serious and one, well, kinda-sorta serious.

BFS (BiggerFasterStronger) has been fighting this battle in high schools, on the behalf of coaches like you, for about 30 years now. http://www.biggerfasterstronger.com/...nification.pdf Their argument is that the same core lifts (squat, bench, power clean, hex-bar deadlift) should be a part of the HS athlete's training year-round, regardless of sport they participate in, with auxiliary lifts chosen to complement the sport choice.

Do the "best and brightest" coming up from HS to college typically aspire to jobs involving coaching HS kids at sports? Or do they tend to get technical degrees or financial/business degrees and "follow the money?"

Why Hex Bar?

[Minno5]

I agree...why hex bar deads? My experience with hex bars is kids end up making it a hack squat as opposed to a dead lift

[MattJ.D.]

my highschool football work out

Workout A
Squats
Bench
Hack Squats
Leg Press
Incline press
Decline press
Dumbbell bench press
curls
leg extensions
leg curls
SLDL standing on block
tricep pulldowns
close grip bench press
dips

Workout B
Military press
power cleans
Hang cleans
lat pull down
barbell shrugs
dumbbell shrugs
upright rows
jam machine
row machine
t bar rows
dumbbell press
dumbbell cleans
pull ups

A-B-OFF-A-B rep scheme rotated every 8 weeks 3x10,3x5,3x3

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

Holy fuck. I got bored, tired, and overtrained just by reading that list.