Advice on Building Your Team in the Weight
Room
by Bob Ladouceur
Contents:
The question in all aspects of sports is, How good can you be?
How good do you want to be? Is there such a thing as being too strong or too
fast? Or too agile? No.
Training Matters
So you have to assess how far do you want to go in the sport, and how good
you want to be in the sport. And that's going to equate on how much time you
are going to
spend in the sport, mostly in the preparation of the sport. Keeping in mind
that
perfection is an allusion and you're never going to reach it, still there is no
such thing as
being too fast or too strong or too agile or too quick. So you have to push
yourself to
be the strongest you can be, the fastest you can be, the quickest you can be,
and do
it on the year-round basis.
Put specific opponents or rivalries aside. We're trying to get all our
players into a position where, when that
when the
season does come, they are going to be in a position to achieve success. That's
going to
come through their training. They're going to have to play kids who are bigger
than they
are, stronger or at least as strong, and they're going to have to match up to
them. So it all
depends on how far you want to go in the sport and how dedicated to be.
It's harder to excel in football if you don't put the time in than in
baseball or golf or basketball. A natural athlete can really excel in the other
sports without
putting in a tremendous amount of time. In football, that's difficult to do. In
football,
people are going to be hitting you and physically handling you. It's a matter
of physics.
Do you have the strength and power to overcome the opponent?
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Physical Demands
It's a sport that's archaic or barbaric in a way in that you have to
physically overpower your opponent, and if you don't do the work, that
off-season prep work, it's
going to show. You'll pay the price for it. Other sports have year-round
programs, but in
football it's a must.
That's why we concentrate now on making their goals in lifting. Are they
reaching their goals in agility? Their quickness goals? Where are they in terms
of how much
they weigh? We even go to body fat contact. So we talk about physical
condition. Those
goals are objective and measurable. They are not emotional goals, or
team-oriented
goals. They are physical goals that you can measure. That's what motivates them
the
most. They can say, I went up 15 pounds in my bench and 25 pounds in my squat.
Those
are gratifying and a huge motivator. It's a set program and one you measure on
a
monthly basis, and they can see the improvements in their body. Their focus is
inward directed
on their body image and physical conditioning.
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Team Motivation
There is a team dynamic at work because they are all working together and
pushing each other. And they are competing against each other in the weight
room. That's
healthy. They want to see who is the strongest in certain lifts. And they will
be
playing next to each other in the fall. The fact that they are all together is
critical.
A lot of players come to me and say I want to work out at my club or work
out with my dad at his club. We discourage that. For one, we know they don't
work as hard as
with the team, and it won't be as structured that we set up for them. We insist
on working as
a team, and that's where we start building our team. The team is created
through a lot
of hard work and working together. You just don't create a team through three
weeks before
the season starts. You start creating your team in the winter when these guys
are in the
weight room working together with a common goal.
Kids are smarter than adults give them credit for. They see the workers.
They see the players and the guys who really try hard. Usually, the coach's
pick more often
than not is the players' pick too. They are aware of who is the best player and
who
deserves to start.
Being a great lifter is no guarantee that you can be a great football
player, but it does say a great deal about character. I rarely have had a
player who worked in the
weight room and on his conditioning and then come out and be totally
ineffective. At the
very least, they become good competitors who push first-string kids and work
their way onto
special teams and spell other kids when they get tired. That work ethic in the
weight
room translates out to the football field.
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About the Author: Bob
Ladouceur
writes on the secrets to success. He would know. Few teams in the world have
won as often as De La Salle High School's football team. The Spartans,
perennially rated among the best prep teams in the country, are currently
riding a record 100+ game winning streak. Ladouceur, who has been the coach
since 1979, has comprised a 125-1 record in the 1990s and an overall mark of
238-14-1. The school of 900 boys is located in Concord, California, east of San
Francisco.
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