Introducing Strength and Conditioning to Freshmen

As the new school year begins, our incoming freshman are getting their first exposure to collegiate strength and conditioning. Much to their surprise a lot of them probably won’t grab a heavy weight for a few more weeks. Like most things in life, when it comes to proper weight lifting you must learn to walk before you can run.

When an athlete comes to us as a freshman we have no real idea on his or her experience with strength training or conditioning. Some may have come from high schools with an excellent strength program and some might have never worked out in their lives. As a strength staff we must introduce them to the world of strength and conditioning in a manner that will not only keep them healthy in the short term, but also set them up for long term progress and success.

The first phase of this introductory period is a basic movement competency screen. This phase tests our athletes on movements that we intend to load at some point in their training. They must prove to us that they have the joint mobility, body control, and kinesthetic sense to master these movements before we can load them. Our athletes are given a lot of reps with bodyweight and sometimes banded assistance to help them “groove the pattern.” This period is important because this is their opportunity to learn some of our coaching cues, as well as understand what we are looking for when we ask them to perform a movement. They may not be moving heavy weight around, but they are allowing their bodies to master certain movements so that when they become loaded the movements are automatic. We also use this time to strengthen their cores, and introduce them to some basic finishers to keep their strength and work capacity from digressing.

The next phase is going to work as their introduction to weight lifting. They should have an understanding of how to move properly, so now we begin to load them with weight. They might be on a program similar to the one used by their teammates, but with lower volume to allow more time for us to teach and coach them. This period also teaches them things about the weightroom that will be important for them to work efficiently with their teammates. Things like loading a barbell, using dumbbells, reading their programs and recording their weights might be new to some so this period is a good chance to learn how to work within the weightroom.

Finally, they should be ready to begin working on the same program as their teammates. By now they should have mastered basic movements, and have sufficient experience within a weightroom environment to understand what we expect from them. This learning process is designed to ensure their safety as well as eliminating any bad habits they might have picked up outside a good strength and conditioning program. This sets them up very well for a long term training career, as well as develops a positive attitude towards the weightroom.