Building Team Discipline and Committment

I recently received an email from a high school strength and conditioning coach in Montana, wondering how we get our teams/players to committ to our off-season training programs and be disciplned in their approach through months of grueling training. My answer was as follows:

Priority # 1

As a strength and conditioning coach at the high school level you should have the support of your Athletic Director. The A.D. must trust that your goals and objectives are in the same order as the athletic departments mission.

Priority # 2

You and the head coaches should be on the same page. You can't have the committment of your players if the head coach isn't on the same page as you are with the program. If they don't understand your program or have questions about your philosophy, educate them every chance you get. We are in an era of sports where every coach understands the benefits of a good off-season and pre-seaon conditioning program. The coach must get the players to understand the benefits, so he can emphasize it's importance to all of his athletes. Every athlete should understand that there are certain things that must be done to get ready to play at the highest level come In-season.

Priority # 3

Program Orientation. Every player participating in the training program must understand what is expected of him. The orientation process must include team goals, program objectives, weightroom demeanor, team discipline, exercise descriptions, set and reps schemes, etc. When the athletes walk into the weightroom or are conditioning, they must understand the intensity factor. We have a few rules in our program, but an athlete knows that if they yawn it's 20 push-ups and if they sit it's 20 push-ups. Our goal is to increase work capacity and we strive towards this goal on a rep by rep basis for the entire length of a workout.

Priority # 4

Program Consistency. When dealing with a high school program, you have the opportunity to work with an athlete for four years. This provides you the opportunity to instill certain qualities in your players from a very young age. Hard work, discipline, committment, team work, intensity. I think you get the point. These are the four years of an young athletes greatest gains in height, weight, and strength, so the ability to teach exercise technique, progressive overload, consistency, and patience will allow the athletes to develop according to their individual maturity process. The maturity process for each athlete is different and you must take this into account when developing programs for your teams.