Keep Fighting the Good Fight

[crookedfinger]

Coach,
Just wanted to drop you a line. I am a SpEd Behavior Teacher and started as an assistant coach for the school’s powerlifting team December 1. Our season pretty much just ended, with one of our lifters finishing 14th in the state for his weight class. This kid was out for over a year due to an injury when he started lifting with us in December. Anyways, the head coach, who is, obviously, really a football coach had a long conversation with me the other night. He, basically, said that in the last 4 months, I have completely upended his thoughts, ideas and what he thought he knew about strength training.

I will rewind a bit. When the season started, the first training day was a complete cluster. It was just bad. I watched the hour and a half progress, went back to my room, put my head in my hands and pondered. I emailed him and told him we needed to move the kids to a basic LP and laid out what that would look like, how it would progress, and how much time it should take. I expected a “yeah? NO.” response. It took him a while, but a day or so later he replied and said, “let’s go with it.”

We proceeded to run kids on a basic LP as best as I could navigate within the demands of meets. Additionally, he agreed with me about moving all of them to low bar, moving all of them to conventional dead lift, and he agreed to allow me to program the Press.

We ended the season with all of our 200 and up guys squatting in the low-mid 400’s for 3 sets of 5. Every guy that trained with us set personal records. Many broke the record boards in the high school weight room. Several squatted mid 500s (single ply with wraps) in meets. I had a girl who weighs 147 and had never really lifted before squat 305 (suit and wraps), pull 320 in regionals and miss 340 by about 2 inches of lock out. All of the girls on the team broke existing school records on all lifts. There is more, much more, but I will stop there.

All of this, he sat back and witnessed. Which leads to the conversation from the other night.

He revealed to me that he spent that last 4 months going from a complete skeptic in what I was suggesting to doubting everything he had ever been taught about strength. He shared with me that he would go home and talk to his wife (who is also a coach) about what was going on. That he didn’t understand “how” it was happening. It was too simple. Work and rest. Add 5 pounds, repeat. He shared that he began to look at what they were doing with the football players in off season and started to see so many flaws. He began to realize that the football players weren’t getting anywhere near as strong as they could have been and he didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing in football as the motto of “getting stronger” was not really happening. He told me after about the first two weeks he began to research what I was telling him and continued to do so the entire season.

He then thanked me. He, literally, told me the accomplishments of the lifters this season were because of me. And further thanked me for teaching him about training for strength. He then revealed to me that his goal is to be a D1 Head Coach and that when that happens he plans to implement what we did this season for powerlifting with his football team. Oh, at that point, he said he hoped I would be ready for a career change when the time was right.

Anyways, what you are doing is having an impact. It has impacted me in my life. It has impacted the kids I have trained for the last 4 months, who are still showing up at 6 AM 3 days a week to squat, deadlift, and press while adding weight to the bar. And it has impacted one high school football coach that has observed first-hand what you and I know is the absolute best way to get people stronger.

I bought him a copy of PPST3 a couple of weeks ago. In my note to him, I wrote that he didn’t need me anymore.

Thanks again Coach. Keep fighting the good fight.

PS-I emailed him a link to the seminar page this week. I told him, it would be good if we could attend the June WFAC seminar and that if the cost was too high for the district to cover for both of us, he should attend without me. He was interested and will be trying to get it approved.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Good to hear that somewhere out there is a receptive Head Coach. He is an exceptional guy.