If you are a high school athlete reading this, you are probably thinking, “It’s summer!  I have been in class for 10 months.  I don’t want any education during my vacation.” We understand... Summer is the time when you get summer jobs, vacation, and just plan relax without worrying about school.

5 Tips for Your Team's Next Summer Workouts

However, for high school athletes - and most importantly football players - this is a critical time for priming the body and mind for the upcoming season.  And although coaches work extremely hard from January through May Spring Practice to get their teams organized, grouped and prepared to play their positions in the fall, the summer is where weight training and conditioning take center stage to become the focal point. Here are five summer training tips that coaches, especially strength coaches, can use to educate their players during summer workouts:

1. Have a Plan, AND STICK TO IT!

Stop me if you have heard this one before:  “We just open the weight room for a few hours a day and let them do whatever.”  How is your team supposed to improve if you have no plan at all?  This is an unacceptable practice.  If this is happening, please stop and rethink why the coaches are in this profession.  The only way to run a summer program is to have a variation of a 6-8 week lifting and running plan. Once it's there, the team needs to stick to it.  Don’t let other coaches and consultants try to sway the team from a core exercise philosophy - just take the tips and help as they come along.  Reevaluate the offseason plan before each summer, keep records from the past summers, and modify what works while throwing out what didn't.

2. Make Players Accountable

The best way to have problems with the chemistry of the team is to not hold everyone to the exact same standard.  From the 5-star quarterback to the backup who is satisfied just being on the team, everyone must be held to a high standard for success to happen. This means there must be an attendance policy in place. For our program, if one of the teammates doesn't make at least 18 workouts during the summer, then he will sit out every game till those 18 are made.  Unfortunately, there will be teammates that will test this - the tone needs to be set early and the standard held in place.  In my experience, when the athletes see that the coaches mean business and treat everyone the same, this becomes less of a problem.

 3. Make Sure the Strength Coach Has Some Type of Certification

Every year more coaches are being held liable and more school districts are being sued for athletes having health issues while participating in sports (especially during summer workouts).  Parents need to know that they are sending their child to someone how knows what they are doing with the background/education to prevent harm in the weight room or on the field.  Although I won't recommend the specific certifications to achieve, I do recommend researching and targeting one that will work for you.  It will not only protect the athletes but it will also protect the coaches.

4. Keep it Simple, Stupid (The KISS method)

Remember, as intense as the summer should be, this is still high school level athletics.  Don’t bombard the team with 2+ hour workouts and dozens of different exercises.  Most of the time, I have found if you keep your weight work to 45-50 minutes and then follow up with conditioning, it keeps them interested and is more fun than a 2 hour marathon.

These are the core lifts that I recommend should be the focus of the program: Bench press, squats, cleans and deadlifts.   If you have limited equipment then use bands as supplemental exercises to work the smaller muscle groups and body weight exercises for core work.  Remember, simple always works best.

5. Use Competitions to Make Things Fun

High school athletes usually love to compete, challenge themselves and challenge each other - that love just needs to be unlocked.  If you have an athlete that doesn't like to be challenged nor compete, the coach should probably need to do some reevaluating of the program rather than reevaluate the athlete.

In addition to being more fun, competition also seems less like work and can yield better attitude/effort.  It keeps things flowing smoothly and develops pride in a job well done.  Tug-of-war, timed 40’s, and bench press reps contests are just some of the things we have done at Warren - our players love it!  Break them up by position, weight class or grade to even the competition.  Give the group that wins a picture on the wall of the weight room.  Try it and your program will see improvement in the team’s collective and individual efforts.

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Coach McMullin has been the Head Strength/Head Powerlifting Coach at Warren Central High School in Vicksburg, Mississippi for the past 16 years.  He has coached 5 individual state powerlifting champions and has helped the Viking football team to numerous district titles and playoff appearances.  Prior to coming to WCHS, he was an intern strength coach at Mississippi State and the United States Naval Academy.