Did you miss part one where I shared some updates and feedback from Skill of Strength athletes who are participating in fall sports.
Today, we’re diving into my phone again to see some more recent text messages from SOS athletes and I’ll share a few things we can learn from some of our most successful athletes.
Take full advantage of strength and conditioning and your tryouts will be easier, you’ll likely perform better and get more playing time and have less injuries!
As a coach, I’m always learning from our athletes. Not only am I constantly paying attention to what worked best to help athletes improve their strength and conditioning and what may not have worked so well, but also things like what qualities and behaviors are present in the most successful athletes.
Just like I encourage athletes to strive to always get better, I never want to stop learning and becoming a better strength and conditioning coach. I take every athlete’s feedback to heart.
Here are a few more texts from athletes who trained at Skill of Strength over the summer.
Tyrone plays football for Chelmsford High School, and became the starting running back this season. Tyrone began training with us through a deadlifting workshop we offered at Skill of Strength in the spring. After the workshop he decided to train with us full-time leading up to his fall season, and it’s really paying off!
Jack plays football at Bentley University. He’s been an SOS athlete since the beginning of his junior year of high school. Earning both academic and athletic scholarships at Bentley, Jack has been a role model to our young athletes since he started. He takes his strength training seriously too!
Mike, and his brother, Andrew, play football at Tabor Academy. Mike made the varsity squad as an incoming freshman, and both of these guys are multi-sport athletes. Not only do they get to see their training pay off during the fall, but Mike will take his strength to the ice in the winter and Andrew stands out on the baseball diamond in the spring.
Ryan plays lacrosse at Roger Williams. As a freshman, Ryan is already impressing his coaches this fall. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with his strength coach at school and they can’t wait to see Ryan on the field this coming spring.
Another fun fact, Ryan is one of the most well-rounded strength athletes we’ve trained and was 1 of 3 athletes to complete a strict 24K weighted pull-up!
Dan plays baseball at Saint Anselm College. Danny was one of our first athletes at Skill of Strength, and probably one of the few athletes that remembers the facility when it was half the size. Danny spent the summer focusing on getting a rehabbed shoulder ready for fall baseball. Not only is his shoulder looking great, but he crushed a 275lb back squat during his pre-season testing, which I think was his 4th back squat in his life! (The majority of Dan’s squatting has been made up of front squats and double kettlebell rack squats.)
Matt plays football at Chelmsford High School, and in just a short amount of time before the season he made some of the most impressive strength gains in our sports performance training program. As a junior Matt is getting the attention of a lot of college coaches and will be spending the off-season training to impress these guys even more.
Courtney rows for Holy Cross and spends her winter and summer breaks training at Skill of Strength. As our first crew athlete to train at SOS (now we train an entire crew team!) Courtney was the first one to introduce us to the horrible 2k!
Although if you know Courtney you may think of her as an exceptional endurance athlete, she pulled a 260lb deadlift for an easy single before leaving for school this fall. That may have something to do with her peers thinking she should be older than she is!
Grace plays volleyball for Chelmsford High School, and is helping her team out this year big time! After a friendly game of volleyball at the gym, I feel very sorry for anyone of her opponents trying to return her serves. Another multi-sport athlete, I’m excited for Grace to take her training to the track after volleyball season is over.
Jack plays lacrosse at Westford Academy and recently committed to play next year at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jack has taken his training, and his “dance move of the day,”to a whole new level leading into his senior year at WA. As another very well-rounded and balanced strength athlete, I know Jack is going to have an awesome senior year this spring giving him momentum into his freshman year at RPI.
You can see that these texts are from athletes in different sports at varied levels. What they have in common is that they trained together, learned from each other and became better because of each other this summer.
Here are a few ways you too can get most out of your sports performance training.
1. Work hard, train with the best and always be supportive.
Yes, I know that’s kind of three ways in one! 🙂
Whether you realize it or not, every member of your team and each one of your training partners has an impact on your success. You’ll likely train with people who are just starting out as well as athletes who are more experienced than you are. This is a very good thing.
If you’ve ever been pushed just a bit harder or inspired by your training partners and teammates, you’ve seen first-hand one of the most important benefits of group training. You motivate and inspire other athletes, while being motivated and inspired by your training partners!
At SOS We train athletes who play different sports and have different in-season and out-of-season times each year. (The best athletes train year round and trust the process. :))
Even in sports performance training, the importance of a team is essential for the success of each athlete. At Skill of Strength we train many mixed martial artists. Spending time in the gym with these older, more experienced, athletes drove our younger sports performance training athletes to push harder. Plus, they learned that there are many pieces to a successful fight camp! Having athletes around to encourage you to work hard in your sports performance training is very much like fighters having good sparing partners to rely on during camp.
Similarly, if you’re a football player, you likely know about scout teams. As it turns out, the better the scout team is at replicating the defense of their opponents, the better prepared the starting offense will be.
A huge thank you to each of the athletes in today’s post as well as last week’s post. You’ve done a great job and should be proud of your accomplishments in the gym and now during the start of your seasons. I encourage you to get out there and help your team now by not just being stronger and more fit than last year, but also by being the best, more supportive, teammate you can be.
2. Trust the process and stay consistent.
If you’re looking for instant gratification in your strength and conditioning training, look elsewhere. Sure, having a good training session can turn your mood around, satisfy your social needs and leave you feeling accomplished. I suppose that is some instant gratification, but when it comes to making significant progress in your strength and conditioning, it takes time and more commitment than most high school athletes are willing to put forth.
We ask our athletes to:
- Listen to their bodies
- Show up and train hard
- Eat well
- Rest well
If they do all of these things consistently, athletes should feel confident that their hard work will pay off come season time. It’s a short list, but really can feel like a lot to focus on, especially when eating clean for one night makes many high school athletes feel like they deserve to wake up with abs from a magazine!
Our athletes who are patient and embrace the idea that improvements in strength and conditioning take a lot of time and hard work avoid frustration, stick with their training and reap the rewards!
I’ve written previously that I believe the only secret to success is consistency. There is a pattern I see in every successful athlete. The most successful athletes are good teammates, they trust their coaches and the entire training process and they stay committed to their training. They remain confident that, although it’s not always immediate, their training will pay off. Sure, there will be times times you struggle, but don’t let a bad day or week derail your progress. Stay consistent and the gainz will come.
There is nothing easy about training for sports performance and more often than not you’ll have to train at times when you’re tired, when your friends are doing fun things without you, and when you have 6 other to-dos you need to accomplish before school in the morning.
I’m proud of our athletes for putting in the time and commitment it takes to get results. I’m proud of our athletes for lifting each other up and sticking together on good and bad days as well as easy and hard training sessions.
Use the success of your training partners and friends serve as a reminder of the importance of consistency. There is no program you can buy, or supplement that you can take that will impact your success more than a consistent approach to your training. Stay humble and consistent to not only allow you to succeed in athletics, but outside of competition too.
Takeaways:
At SOS we’ll briefly celebrate wins like an easier pre-season testing, scoring a team’s first goal or getting moved to Varsity, but we’ll stay focused on constant improvement, in and off-season with all athletes. Once the summer is over, it’s important to continue the hard work.
My advice: keep showing up and keep trusting the process.
I credit our athletes for their hard work this summer and now, it’s back to business as we keep training during the fall season and prepare for the winter and spring seasons ahead. The best training programs are year-round. They don’t start and stop with the changing the of the seasons; they simply adjust.
