Vertical Alignment in Strength and Conditioning
In education, everything is a progression. You can often trace the roots of high school material all the way back to Kindergarten. There are systems and processes in place to make sure that students are showing competency throughout their time in school. This is usually referred to as “vertical alignment” where teachers at different grade levels create a plan to make sure kids are prepared to be successful year in and year out.
Beyond that, this is also frequently seen in sports as well. There are many places in Texas where high school football staffs are training and equipping pee wee coaches to teach and implement their specific brand of football. You’ll certainly be hard pressed to find a junior high that isn’t reflecting the foundations and principles of the high school program that they feed.
The first day that an incoming freshman steps on their high school campus, there is a very clear cut standard on where they are expected to be both academically and in the sport or sports that they will participate in.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be as common when it comes to strength and conditioning. We commonly see junior high staffs that have specific expectations about the offense and defense they run or the style of ball that they play, but are left in the dark on what the expectation is as it relates to athletic development in the weight room. This is not to say that they do a bad job, but they rarely have a clear progression to follow.
We would argue that as it relates to the overall growth and development of the student-athlete, having a plan to ensure adequate progress in the weight room is just as important as their ability to play a 1–3–1, run inside zone or fit into your specific scheme as an incoming freshman. In fact, as a culture that is learning to prioritize health and wellbeing, we would go as far as to say that long-term athletic development may be just as important as understanding order of operations and sentence structure!
Will it require some extra time and effort to create this vertical alignment in your strength and conditioning program? For sure. Is it worth it? Absolutely! Why? Well, let’s look at a few reasons:
Good for kids
First and foremost, it’s good for kids! For a lot of reasons, but the main one is that it prioritizes proper development. This maximizes athletic potential and decreases the likelihood of injury. Too often, we have kids that can dominate on bench press, but when you ask them to do a push up, they struggle immensely. They can run around a track for laps and laps, but when asked to do a lunge they can’t maintain balance at all. This should not be.
A good vertical alignment strategy would properly lay out a plan of attack that starts with the basics, has ways to assess competency and then progresses an athlete appropriately.
Good for your program
We’ve probably all heard, “It’s not the X’s and the O’s, it’s the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s.” If Jimmy and Joe, (AND Jenny and Jessica for that matter!) can step on your campus able to execute a perfect goblet squat, hip hinge, push up, pull up and lunge, the sky’s the limit! Insofar as high ceilings and the ability to stay healthy are an asset to your program, this is invaluable!
Adds motivation
Many athletes see the basics as boring. Given the choice between throwing those big wheels on the bar for a back squat one-rep max or grabbing a dumbbell and knocking out 10 perfect goblet squats, most are going to choose to load that bar up. Now given a scenario where the former doesn’t happen before the latter, you’ve got kids lining up to show their competency in that basic movement pattern so they can progress quickly. Now those seemingly little things become big things for the athlete!
On top of that, you create ways for kids that are at different levels as it relates to sport skills another opportunity to compete against their teammates. We see athletes all the time that aren’t as talented on the volleyball court or the baseball field, that get in the weight room and have an opportunity to shine. That’s a great way to keep kids that if left only to sport performance may not stay in athletics. And at the end of the day, that’s also good for kids and good for your program!
Ultimately, and really unfortunately, head coaches are going to be judged by wins and losses. This never tells the whole story, and in reality, doesn’t even mention the part of the story that truly has meaning. We get to be around a ton of awesome coaches and they will all tell you that if an athlete leaves their program ill-equipped to be successful spouses, parents and citizens, they’ve failed as a coach.
In the classroom, vertical alignment ensures that a student is prepared to not only be successful throughout high school, but has the tools to be successful beyond that. Knowing that the vast majority of athletes careers will end after high school, sports programs are designed to teach lessons and give young people tools to be successful in their life after sports.
Why can’t this be true in your strength and conditioning programs?
Teach your athletes to move well, not just how to grind through a max effort rep. Make this important. How? Take the time to engineer a long-term plan that provides standards and expectations from the minute they step into school athletics. That provides a way to assess proper movement competency along the way.
It’s worth it!
Junior high athletes that can move efficiently become high school athletes that can build on that strong foundation. And when it all comes to an end, you’ve got a better opportunity to create healthy adults that stay active for years to come. Healthy enough to be great citizens, great spouses and great parents!
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