Pratical tips on how Coaches can inspire greatness in all their Athletes
BY RICK ANDERSON, BFS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Practical tips on how coaches can inspire greatness in all their athletes The most important principle that all coaches need to know about inspiring their athletes to achieve physical superiority and athletic success is that the greatest motivational tool is, simply, making progress. Athletes must see objective progress to keep them working hard to achieve their goals. The key word here is objective.
Athletes need more than pep talks to be sure they’re improving; they need the certainty of cold, hard facts. An athlete’s bench press needs to keep going up, and their 40 time needs to keep going down. They need to continually see that the training they’re doing in the weightroom, and the work they’re doing with plyometrics, agilities and sprinting, are paying off in improved performance. This, I believe, is the ultimate motivator for young athletes. T-shirts, signifying a milestone in a specific lift or field test, are a classic tool for motivating athletes.
If you want to have your football team focus on improving their results in the power clean, have T-shirts made up for those who hit 200, 225 and 250 in that lift – with each shirt printed in different colors so teammates can easily distinguish the lift. Perhaps the 200-pound shirt could be in bronze, the 225 in silver, and the 250 in gold! Hey, these colors work for the Olympics!
Team Records for Max Results Every year for the past 15 years Nothing motivates like a Be an 11 Seminar. Shown here is BFS Vice President John Rowbotham’s seminar at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, MD. s For the past 15 years BFS Senior Vice President Rick Anderson and BFS clinician Mark Beckham have conducted a “competitor’s clinic” at Oxnard High School in Oxnard, CA.
BFS Clinician Mark Beckham and I have hosted a “competitor’s clinic” at Oxnard High School in Oxnard, California. The focus of the clinic is not just to have athletes break personal records but also to break team records – and have a lot of fun in the process. A team record is vital to athletic success because it keeps athletes thinking about how to encourage their teammates to improve. Just by totaling up all the individual players’ lifts or times and dividing by the number of athletes, you have a team average. Or as I call it, a team record. It works for any lift or field test. You can have a team vertical jump, a team 40-yard dash and a team bench press – you name it.
Emphasizing team records is great for the younger athletes on a team because it takes the emphasis off comparing their raw numbers with the older athletes. Everyone is contributing to the team records, so a ninth grader with a bench of 150 is just as important as a senior benching 300. And you can break down team records even more by establishing team records for each class, so that the current freshman class can strive to beat the team records of the previous year or beat an all-time class record. It’s important for a coach to post personal records and team records where the athletes will see them.
The weightroom is the most logical location to post their records, as this is where the hard work takes place. Also, it’s important for the coach to continually T-shirts with lifting milestones or motivational slogans, such as those worn here by athletes from Bingham High School in South Jordan, UT, are effective for inspiring athletes. study these records so he or she knows where their teams were, where they stand now, and where they need to go.
A coach can learn a lot about how his or her future teams will do based upon how they compare to current and past The BFS Beat the Computer software program enables coaches to create power ranking reports that show how each athlete compares to national standards, along with “Top 10” team reports for specific lifts and field tests. a thing, you cannot manage it – and if you cannot manage it, you will not accomplish it.” In this case, progress can be measured – and used to great advantage: Be sure to have your athletes focus on breaking team records as well as personal records and you’ll double the motivational impact. that are Velcro-backed for easy moving.
We decided this was an ideal product for high school coaches who don’t have the resources to make their own boards – especially ones of this quality! One of the original BFS philosophies that we continue to stress at our clinics is this: “If you cannot measure Tools that BFS offers that can help coaches and athletes keep track of their progress are top-10 rankings that can be printed from data entered into our Beat the Computer program, an individualized “power ranking” that shows how an athlete, male or female, compares to national standards; posters that list the BFS standards, and laminated record boards.
And I’m really excited about our latest product in this area, our Top 10 Motivational Boards. These large, 8 feet by 3 ½ feet boards are made of hard Komatex board and can be customized with your school name, colors and mascot! You select the ten categories you want to measure, and then easily keep track and update results with dry erase name tags A super way to get athletes to break personal records is to develop motivational record boards, such as the one shown here that covers an entire weightroom wall at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, UT. teams.
For example, if the team record for the power clean last year was 200 pounds, and in the off-season next year’s team did 215 pounds, that coach can look forward to working with a more explosive team.
CHART YOUR PATH TO SUCCESS TOP 10 MOTIVATIONAL BOARDS AND DEPTH CHARTS TOP 10 RANKINGS BFS TOP 10 BOARDS LARGE 8’ X 3.5’ BOARDS • HIGH CONTRAST BFS COLORS • TEN PRINCIPLE BFS CATEGORIES MOVEABLE NAME TAGS STOCK BOARDS USUALLY SHIP IN 48 HOURS 8’ X 3.5’ BOARDS • ADD YOUR SCHOOL OR TEAM NAME CHOOSE YOUR 10 CATEGORIES • MOVEABLE NAME TAGS FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE COLORS CUSTOM BOARDS USUALLY SHIP IN 2 TO 4 WEEKS 4’ X 3.5 ‘ BOARDS • ADD YOUR SCHOOL OR TEAM NAME CUSTOMIZE BY POSITION, BY SPORT • MOVEABLE NAME TAGS • FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE COLORS CUSTOM BOARDS USUALLY SHIP IN 2 TO 4 WEEKS DRY-ERASE NAME TAGS ARE VELCRO BACKED FOR EASY REARRANGING AND UPDATING AS YOUR ATHLETES IMPROVE!
A MUST HAVE TOOL FOR ANY SPORTS TEAM DEDICATED TO HELPING ATHLETES SUCCEED SINCE 1976
From BFS Magazine — May/June 2007. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
