Jun 21, 2018Charting Progress
One of the best ways to motivate athletes during training is to hold them accountable, and that’s the idea behind one of the newest additions to the weightroom at Purdue University. As reported on GoldandBlack.com, a giant accountability chart is encouraging Purdue’s football players to work their hardest and achieve their goals. Justin Lovett, Director of Strength and Conditioning for Purdue football, believes that the chart is helping set up his players to achieve big things this coming season.
The metallic boards fill up one of the walls in the weightroom, and they list every football player’s name along the left-hand side with slots for reward pieces to be added, if requirements are met. There is one board for offense and another for defense, and each week the players work hard to achieve their training goals, which are listed at the top of the chart. Those goals will continue to be modified by the coaching staff as the team progresses through spring training, summer training, and each week of the season.
To add further motivation, there are 16 weeks across the top of the chart, implying a 16-week season. Teams are only guaranteed 12 weeks, but the coaching staff wants to encourage the players to expect success and work towards the goal of making it all the way through the postseason and onto the national championship. Lovett believes that if his team is going to have that kind of success, everyone in the program needs to know where each player stands. The chart makes this more than clear, and helps keep players accountable, as every one of their teammates and coaches can see it.
The chart is marked with various symbols in order to track the training of everybody on the team. A hammer next to a player’s name means they “train like a champion.” A helmet symbol means that a player has improved his football performance outside of the weightroom by doing things such as attending position meetings, learning about nutrition, or going to treatment. And a railroad track is used to show that a player is on track with their academic requirements, such as attending study halls and classes.
One the benefits of implementing this type of system is that it incites competition. “The players really fight (with us), ‘Hey, why you’d take away my hammer?’ ‘Well, because you got pinned by the weight and then you felt sorry for yourself. That’s not what champions do. Champions might get beat by the weight, but then they get up and worry about their teammate and then they finish,'” Lovett told GoldandBlack.com.
When one player fails to check in with the nutritionist and misses out on a helmet, the whole team knows, and the coaches or other players in the position group are quick to address the situation. This keeps everyone motivated and focused on doing what they need to do, as they don’t want to let any of their teammates down.
The board also reiterates the importance of every player on the team. For example, there were several walk-ons this year who had perfection across the board, earning every helmet, hammer, and railroad track over the spring.
“If you get a guy who may not see the field ever, well, he can leave a huge part of this team because he’s an iron man award winner because he does every thing right,” Lovett said. “So your value to the team is getting good grades, serving on the show team and being tremendous in the community. So just because you don’t play doesn’t mean you don’t have value. We want to show that you might not crack the depth chart, but you’re definitely a value to us. You’re an example of what we should be doing.”
