Aug 19, 2016Room For Improvement
Having a great strength and conditioning program at the high school level can not be attributed to one thing. As illustrated in this article from the Tahoe Daily Tribune, a new weightroom at South Tahoe (Calif.) High School has opened the door for success, but the new strength and conditioning coach’s philosophy and techniques look to do the rest.
Everett Goldberg, hired as South Tahoe’s Head Strength and Conditioning Coach after working at the NCAA Division I level, most recently at San Jose State University, is focusing on four areas.
Getting Specific: Goldberg puts all Viking athletes through specialized six-week programs, according to their sport and abilities. The programs include strength training, conditioning, sprint mechanics, and change of direction training.
“Defensive linemen aren’t doing the same workouts as quarterbacks — they don’t need to. Baseball players aren’t doing the same workouts as the cheer team,” Goldberg said. “Everything is specialized and everything is relevant toward their sport.”
Injury Prevention: No matter what program the athletes are on, Goldberg makes sure the primary focus isn’t on lifting big numbers.
“The most important thing in this room is injury prevention. If you’re doing anything to where you’re getting a kid hurt in here, then you’re not doing your job,” he said. “What we’re doing in here should prevent injuries on their surface.”
Proper Form: Beyond injury prevention, Goldberg wants his athletes to be “technicians” and focus on movements that are going to be biomechanically efficient. That’s why his workout sessions are not only structured, but recorded by tablets that are attached to the racks.
“Everything is done the way the human body is meant to do it,” Goldberg said. “We’re not doing anything that is going to put the body at risk.”
Great Weightroom: One of the most important elements of Goldberg’s program was upgrading the weightroom. In June, the school unveiled a brand new facility, featuring 10 racks from Legend Fitness as well as PowerBlock dumbbells. In addition to brand new rubber flooring in the room itself, there’s a turf hallway for warm-ups, plyometics, and soft-tissue work.
The cost was just $100,000 — most of which was covered by donors — and utilized space that was previously being used as storage. Now, it’s the envy of programs nationwide.
“There’s not a high school in the country that has a better facility,” said Goldberg. “There will be some that have the same, but nobody is better. The kids are at a huge advantage, between this room and playing and living at altitude. The kids have the biggest advantage of anyone in the state.”
While he’s already seen the short-term impact of the new weightroom, Goldberg knows the true benefits are still to come.
“It will take a couple years for the culture to kick in, the wins to start skyrocketing and all that fun stuff, but they’re doing it the right way,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to build, the culture around the program instead of just the program.”
