This originally appeared in Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter 1.45 and Brian McCormick’s Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters, Volume 1.
I trained some freshmen basketball players in the weight room this weekend. They were weak. I put 300 pounds on the bench and none could do it. One kid almost suffocated from the weight of the bar when it crashed on his chest. Then, they tried to squat 400 pounds. They collapsed. One left with ice on his knee because of the swelling. I tried the dead lift with 400 pounds and none could lift it off the ground. These kids are just mentally weak. They cannot even finish a hard workout.
That did not really happen. I did work out a kid who told me that the off-season conditioning at his high school consists of running before and after school until players vomit.
As I described the weight lifting workout, I am sure most people were confused and wondered why I would expect freshman to lift so much weight, why I would challenge their mental toughness when they were physically unable to lift the weights and why I showed such little remorse for athletes who were injured while training. However, somehow we condone, and even applaud, coaches who use the same type of unrealistic training on the track.
When a player vomits during the workout, it should not be a badge of honor for a coach. I have problems with coaches who speak with pride after a kid vomits during their workout. It does not signal a hard workout, but an inexperienced coach or trainer who knows very little about athletic development.
On the court, we do not want beginners to rush into shooting three-pointers. We yell at players who try to do too much with the ball. Yet, many coaches condition players in the same fashion, forgetting fundamentals and asking players to do too much. There is no progression of conditioning to develop the aerobic and anaerobic capacities of players and to improve their work rate, lactate tolerance, VO2max, etc.
Instead, there are orders to run faster and harder. The vomiting could signal poor nutrition, dehydration or inability to tolerate the training, among other things. Running an athlete into dehydration is not only bad training, but dangerous. Creating programs which go beyond the athletes’ ability to tolerate the training will not improve the athletes’ conditioning, but lead to injury.
Anyone can make a workout hard. It does not take a rocket scientist to push an athlete beyond his limits and mentally and physically break down an athlete. It takes a skilled coach to evaluate and build an athlete through a gradual progression, whether through conditioning, in the weight room or on the court.
