I’m a sophomore football player looking to incorporate westside training methods in to my offseason training program. My problem is this; my football coach, while motivated and well-intentioned, will never let this pass. If I go entire sessions without squatting, or heaven forbid, not take every single set to failure, I’ll be reprimanded and forced to do so. The thought of him noticing me during my dyanmic day lifting low weights quickly (“you must lift slowly or you’re wasting your time”) is just plain scary. He is also expressly against any reps that aren’t between 6 and 10 (“It looks cool to lift big weights, but it doesn’t help you! That’s why they test how many times you can bench press 225 at the combine, not your one rep max!”).
Can someone please help me out here with some advice on how to handle the situation? There would be so much information to show him that I’m not sure it would be possible to do before he tells me to shut up and trust that he knows everything.
Pay dave tate to challenge your coach to a lifting contest. Otherwise, check your 225 max in front of the coach, and tell him to fuck off and that if you don’t improve from doing your own things by end of off season, you’ll never disbelieve him again, but if your right and you increase more then the average of the others he never has the right to tell you what to do again. Throw in a 500$ wager and your all set. Just don’t screw up
Tell him to f*ck off. If you are truely offseason, it’s none of his business.
Well if I had told my coach to fuck off, i wouldn’t be playing football anymore! be careful what advice you tell this guy. Personally, I would ask Dave for advise of how to explain the concept of westside to the coach. I never had the luxury of a S&C program in high school. We were pretty left on our own to do whatever. Good luck…
I feel for you man. I currently am offensive coordinator and strength coach at a high school football program. (graduated from college 2 years ago) and use alot of westside stuff in my kids workouts both inseason and in the off-season and know alot of coaches who have no idea what their doing in their offseason programs and bitch about their kids lifts not going up. You’re in a tough situation because coaches control your playing time and if you say screw you to the coach he could say screw you to you career regardless of how stong you are (i’ve seen stupid coaches do this in college) if you don’t do what he tells you. My advice is this, either show him articles and proof that maybe he should try some of you suggestions because they come from good sources (all the guys at T-mag) or put up with his shit at your workouts and go through the motions and do your own thing outside of organized team lifts at a private gym. (if you have the funds and time to do this). This way he doesn’t see you disobey him or disregard him and you still become a better athlete. (I know it sucks) Man! it’s a tough spot to be in. Good luck.
Sophmore in high school?
Are off-season workouts required to be on the team?
Is he always supervising the workout times?
Are you the only player who feels this way?
Does he always believe low reps are bad? I.e. this is very early off-season, so time to put on size.
Do you not play any other sports?
Don’t tell him to fuck off. You will be off the team and it will prove nothing.
No offense, but I dont think EITHER of the first two approaches are exactly helpful. He says he’s a sophmore, so we’re telling a 15 year-old kid to tell a grown man - an authority figure no less - to fuck himself? The kid says the coach is well intentioned, not an ass. As far as it not being the coach’s business because it’s the offseason, by that logic it’s not the coach’s business if he decides to sit at home and stuff his face with doritos. If his team has an offseason conditioning program and he’s not following that program I could see how that would be the coach’s business.
As for an actual suggestion, i think talking to him is your best bet. And not for 2 minutes while he’s trying to do somehting else like supervise the weightroom, after lifting someday. I’d make more about how good westside is (this is gonna involve you reading a lot of articles and trying to condense the major benfits into about a 2-3 minute monologue, cuz thats all the time you’ll get if that much) than about how shitty his program is (although when he says that lifting weights slowly is the only way to go I owuld point out that there is nothing on the football field that you do slowly.) If he pulls out that stupid line “we’re training football players, not powerlifters,” I would counter with "then why are we traingin like bodybuilders (increased tut, 6-10 rep range) If none of this works, I wouldn’t fight it too hard. I remember big martin responding to a similiar post where he said that if a coach has gone to the trouble of actually designing a program, then it’s an insult not to do it and will needlessly put you in the doghouse. he spoke from personal experience. That being said, most schools put you out on your own to find a gym somewhere for the summer, which gives you probably 8-10 weeks of unsupervised lifting. Perfect for a Westside trianing cycle.
http://www.elitefts.com/documents/westside_training_football.htm
This oughta get you started, get your hands on as much Westside info as you can, obviously with an eye towards its applicability for football players. That means don’t limit yourself to this website, check out elitefts and westside-barbell.com good luck, I wish I were more optimistic for you
Read Joe’ Defranco’s " Westside for the skinny bastard." His reps for ME lifts are at 5 reps. It’s not in the 6 - 10 range, but it’s close. Are you allowed to rotate your exercises for ME lifts? If so, don’t rock the boat and work on good form. Hot the posterier chain hard. I don’t know many 10th graders who are perfect in their form. Make this a priority, and try to be positive in whatever you do. In the summer you can get your ME lifts down in the 1 -3 range and get your hypertrophey work with the team. A word to the wise, don’t get yourself in the dog house by disagreeing with the coach. I wouldn’t discuss the topic with teammates, either. The last thing your team needs is a “cancer” in the program. Good luck and stay positive!
Tungsten, Jocko, Cowboy, KBC, and Dark Helmet all made good suggestions. Do not tell your coach to fuck off. That is the absolute worst advice I have ever heard. Being benched or kicked off is much worse than the program you are on.
Go to Joe De Franco’s web site. Show the coach all the awesome football players he trains. Give him a few articles he “might be interested in” and see where that takes you. Tell him part of the formula for power is speed. That is why you need speed work. Talk about percentages and how a guy who can bench 400lbs can do 225lbs more times than a guy that benches 315lbs because it is 55% of the 400lb benchers max and it is 75% of the 315lb benchers max. Read all the Q and A articles on Joe’s page. Read all of his articles on his page. If you don’t think he will talk to you then write him a paper. Do some research. I would use Joes stuff because he won’t take advice from Date Tate or Louis Simmons being that they are powerlifters. Joe trains guys who make millions playing football. Help educate your coach without giving off the feeling that your superior to him. Hand him the paper and say hey these are the reasons I think my lifting can help me. I’m sorry If I offended you coach, but could you just look at this stuff. Site any web sites or articles you read and offer to take him to Joes web site.
Hope this helps.
Main thing do what it takes to keep playing football. Believe it or not even if you have to train wrong it is not the end of the world. At least you are training and that does help. Many of us have been through the same situations.
One of my best friends went through this in high school. So I would advise you to decide what is most important to you. Is if football, powerlifting, etc. My friend started on defensive line as a sophomore, but he was more interested in powerlifting. When the strenght coaches wouldn’t let him use his programs, he decided football wasn’t that important and quit.
I’m not saying quit, I’m just saying to decide what is most important to you and do what is necessary to achieve it.
My guess is that all the posters who recommended telling the coach to f*** off either didn’t play on teams, quit the teams, or were thrown off for attitudinal reasons. Or else these posters are just hotheads who shoot their mouths off without thinking.
Unless you are far and away the greatest athlete to ever play at your school, I wouldn’t even think of acting that way toward your coach. And if you are the second coming, there’s no need to act that way, you could get away with whatever you want anyway.
That said, you have to determine whether the coach is open minded or not. You may have to ask upper classmen or alumni who played for him to get a better idea of whether he is open to new ideas.
If he is, show him the Westside stuff. Joe DeFranco’s site is really interesting as he works with some great successful athletes using the Westside template.
If he is not, I would not even try to convince him of anything.
Perhaps attending one or two sessions per week to show good faith, then working out on your own to reach your goals may work.
You could also get ‘injured’. A doctor’s note citing tendonitis due to chronic repetitive stress would require 6 weeks of rest and a gentle reentry to lifting. That could buy you almost 3 months of freedom to work out on your own. Then you could return and ‘really try hard’, showing off your gains while appearing to put in extra effort.
Important lessons in life to remember:
1- don’t piss off those who have control over your dreams
2- you can bs your way out of a lot of annoying situations as long as you never let anyone know what you did. Avoiding the crap while seemingly working harder to stay in the program gets brownie points as well as getting you your own way
3- the more valued you are as an athlete (or whatever) the more you can get away with. Conversely, the less valued you are, the more you have to conform.
4- the higher the level you go, the more choices you have. You can pick your college easier than you can pick your highschool.
5- quitting works if you don’t want to play anymore. Otherwise, you are only screwing yourself. Keep your eye on the prize, not on your pride.
Some good advice here except from the guys who told you to tell the coach to f*** off!
You’ll have to work with this coach in the near term. As a young guy you should make good gains on any half-way decent program. When you have a chance to work out on your own do what you want… which is what all guys do anyway… except it’s usually chest and bi’s! Showing the coach and the other guys the gains you make working out “your way” should pique their interest. Joe DeFranco’s website is a great suggestion. His “version” of Westside is not all that radical and look at all of the player testimonies he has on his site. Your coach would be pretty foolish to not at least read through that stuff.
I Went thru this myself… and what did I do?
I know coaches like this, unreasonable, seem to think that what worked back when they played football in Podunk Central High will work everywhere. Trying to reason with him won’t work and here is why:
Coaches like him, even if they were to read the information (which they would not carefully analyze anyways), have a hard time admitting that this “kid” (and by kid im talking about the way he views you, im only 18 myself) may have more knowledge then him in terms of lifting. To him, it’s insulting, hurtfull to his pride, and downright embarassing.
My sophmore year I transferred to a prep school on a football/academic scholarship. The coach of 17 years, who was an excellent coach in terms of football, had the Bigger Faster Stronger program engrained there. Plyometrics, westside stuff, that was all hogwash to them.
Here is what I did. Since it was the offseason, i faked a lower back injury that prevented me from performing many lifts. Instead of using my academy’s gym, I used a Gold’s gym that my advisor drove me to damn near everyday (she was very understanding and sympathized with me) I made such good progress by using the program and diet plan that I incorporated, that people started whispering i might be juicing, simply because i had made so much progress in the offseason and i hadn’t been lifting with all the other football players in front of the coach.
That all being said, your coach might not be a compelte quack. Do some research on this site, you’ll see that the latest craze here seems to be 3 full body workouts per week. I know that this is probably similar to what your coach is telling you, but if you feel that your Westside training will give you better results, then try and do as I suggest.
Also, if you want any football specific stuff, esp core training for your position, im a trainer for Explosive performance and I will be playing for IU (come spring ball that is). I know a thing or two about training for football.
Final tip, look up some stuff here by Coach Davies. His renegade training was made for football, and I incorporate quite a few of his exercises, this man knows what he is talking about.
Write back and let me know what you think of the idea, or if I am off completely in the situation.
Hey, how would the coach find out if you are lifting at home or at a health club(unless you use the same club that he goes to.)
[quote]Major Dan wrote:
My guess is that all the posters who recommended telling the coach to f*** off either didn’t play on teams, quit the teams, or were thrown off for attitudinal reasons. Or else these posters are just hotheads who shoot their mouths off without thinking.
Unless you are far and away the greatest athlete to ever play at your school, I wouldn’t even think of acting that way toward your coach. And if you are the second coming, there’s no need to act that way, you could get away with whatever you want anyway.
That said, you have to determine whether the coach is open minded or not. You may have to ask upper classmen or alumni who played for him to get a better idea of whether he is open to new ideas.
If he is, show him the Westside stuff. Joe DeFranco’s site is really interesting as he works with some great successful athletes using the Westside template.
If he is not, I would not even try to convince him of anything.
Perhaps attending one or two sessions per week to show good faith, then working out on your own to reach your goals may work.
You could also get ‘injured’. A doctor’s note citing tendonitis due to chronic repetitive stress would require 6 weeks of rest and a gentle reentry to lifting. That could buy you almost 3 months of freedom to work out on your own. Then you could return and ‘really try hard’, showing off your gains while appearing to put in extra effort.
Important lessons in life to remember:
1- don’t piss off those who have control over your dreams
2- you can bs your way out of a lot of annoying situations as long as you never let anyone know what you did. Avoiding the crap while seemingly working harder to stay in the program gets brownie points as well as getting you your own way
3- the more valued you are as an athlete (or whatever) the more you can get away with. Conversely, the less valued you are, the more you have to conform.
4- the higher the level you go, the more choices you have. You can pick your college easier than you can pick your highschool.
5- quitting works if you don’t want to play anymore. Otherwise, you are only screwing yourself. Keep your eye on the prize, not on your pride.[/quote]
Excellent post, great point of view…from my point of view anyway…uhh never mind. I could’nt agree with you more.
Thanks, mdragon.
Bulldogcountry, just had an alternative idea.
If you do the coach’s workouts and use them to the best of your ability as your supplementary exercises, you could still do the core westside lifts on the side.
That is, do you ME squats, DE squats, ME bench and DE bench on your own. They would be very short workouts. Just the core lift, no extra work. That would come at the coach’s workouts.
For example:
Day 1:
ME Lower - work up to a 1RM squat
Day 3:
DE Upper - 8-12 sets of 3 @ 50-60% 1RM bench
Day 4:
DE Lower - 8 sets of 2 @50% 1RM squat
Day 6:
ME Upper - work up to a 1RM bench
work these ‘side’ workouts around your mandatory coach’s workouts. Especially keep max days for day off from the coach.
view the coaches workouts as supplementary work and/or extra workouts.
I think you’ll find the four workouts I noted above to be stimulating and short, probably in the 15 minute range.
Hopefully you can do them at home, another gym or before coach arrives for his workout program.
Thank you everyone for you suggestions, but most of them simply don’t seem feasable. I have to train in the school weight room as the nearest gym is 20 miles away, and I have to train with the rest of my team because the weight room isn’t open all night or anything. I also can’t bring myself to go half-assed in the weight room to “go through the motions”…trust me, someone WILL notice. Oh, and there’s no way in HELL I will tell the coach to “fuck himself”. I might as well just take up golf.
Actually, I plan on using Chad Waterbury’s 3-day-a-week program after basketball season and should have no problem at all with that. I’m going to approach my coach tomorrow with some articles from defranco and T-Mag and I’ll report back on his response. Until then, I’m going to try out Major Dan’s idea, it sounds like a great plan.
[quote]Bulldawgcountry wrote:
Thank you everyone for you suggestions, but most of them simply don’t seem feasable. I have to train in the school weight room as the nearest gym is 20 miles away, and I have to train with the rest of my team because the weight room isn’t open all night or anything. I also can’t bring myself to go half-assed in the weight room to “go through the motions”…trust me, someone WILL notice. Oh, and there’s no way in HELL I will tell the coach to “fuck himself”. I might as well just take up golf.
Actually, I plan on using Chad Waterbury’s 3-day-a-week program after basketball season and should have no problem at all with that. I’m going to approach my coach tomorrow with some articles from defranco and T-Mag and I’ll report back on his response. Until then, I’m going to try out Major Dan’s idea, it sounds like a great plan.[/quote]
Good luck. It seems like you have a good plan of attack. Major Dan made some great suggestions. In life, young man (hee hee, I’m only 43), you’ll often find that you have to make compromises and/or choose plans B or C if plan A is not possible. Also, great idea on your part about considering some other good T-mag programs such as Chad Waterbury’s. I’m sure you’ll make good gains on one of his programs if you believe in what you’re doing and put forth the effort.