Last night, I was reminded of a sad-fact regarding high school sports, as well as strength and conditioning in general.

We have a new kid that’s been coming into our facility, and his goals are simple:  Get bigger and stronger for football season.  Easy enough, right?

Not so fast.

He’s scheduled for an appointment at 6 pm last night, and you can tell when he walked in that he was tired.  As we asked a few questions, it became apparent why he looked tired – HE WAS TIRED!

In fact, since 2:30 that afternoon he had been to track practice, as well as an off-season football workout.  Couple this with the fact that he’d probably been up since 6 am or so that day, and the fact that we know many high school kids’ diets leave something to be desired.

Any wonder why he wasn’t setting the world on fire with his workout?

This is something we have to remember as strength and conditioning coaches, performance enhancement coaches, or whatever you want to call yourself.

When it comes to our kids, the only thing we have control over is our workout!

You can’t control the fact your baseball stud ran 5 miles for “conditioning.”

You can’t control the fact that your women’s volleyball coach decides the week of the conference tournament that they’re out of shape and need two-a-days to get prepped for this week’s games.

You can’t control when your D-III softball players’ coach decides to make them perform walking lunges around the track for a workout.

Did I mention it was TWO LAPS?

And if you even think I’m joking, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  I’ve seen some pretty stupid sh*t when it comes to training.

The only thing we have control over is what we do.  And if your athletes come to you in this kind of shape, some mobility exercises, active recovery, and possibly some low-level/non-intensive exercise is about all you’re going to get out of them.

So next time your athletes come to you totally wiped out, ask yourself this simple question:

What can I do to make them better?

Chances are a big-time workout it the last thing they need.

Stay strong

MR