Strength training for high school athletes: a coach's guide

A good high school strength program isn't a smaller version of an adult one. It's built around learning to move well, getting stronger slowly, and fitting around practice, games and exams. Here's how to set one up so a whole team keeps training, not only the three athletes who already love the weight room.

Teach the movement before the weight

Most injuries in young lifters come from load added before the pattern is there, not from lifting itself. Spend the first weeks on a short list of movements with light weights, and only add load when each rep looks the same as the last.

• Goblet squatQuads, Glutes
• Romanian deadliftHamstrings, Glutes
• Push-upChest
• One-arm dumbbell rowLats, Upper back
• PlankAbs

Start every session with a real warm-up. Five minutes of easy movement and a few light sets of the first lift do more for a team than any stretching routine. How to warm up for lifting has a version that takes ten minutes.

Sets, reps and how hard

• Two or three workouts a week is plenty in season, three or four in the off season.
• Two to four sets of 6 to 12 reps for most lifts. Heavy singles aren't needed to get strong at this age.
• Stop two or three reps before failure. Teach athletes what that feels like. It keeps form honest and recovery quick. Reps in reserve explains it in plain words.
• Add weight in small steps, only when every rep of every set was clean. Progressive overload is the whole idea in one page.

Fit it around the season

In season, keep the weights and cut the sets: two short sessions a week hold most of the strength built in the off season. Before a big game or a tournament weekend, go lighter. After a hard stretch of games, take an easy week. A planned easy week isn't lost time, it's when the work from the weeks before turns into strength. See what a deload week is.

Keep everyone training

The hardest part of a team program is the athletes who drift. A few things help:

• Look at who hasn't trained, not who lifts the most. A weekly check of who missed is worth more than a leaderboard of maxes.
• Count workouts, not weights, when you make it a team thing. Everyone can win at showing up.
• Give one thing to do, not a list. "Do your Tuesday session before practice" works better than a lecture.

That's how Liftsmith's school teams are built. Your athletes' workouts come to you as a report that leads with who needs attention, and the team board counts workouts and sets in the last seven days, never weights. It's free for high school coaches who confirm a school email, and for their athletes aged 13 to 18. Read how it works.

Keep body numbers out of the weight room

Teenagers' bodies change fast, and comparing body weight or body fat across a team does more harm than good. Track what they can control: sessions done, sets done and the weight on the bar going up over months. Liftsmith keeps body fat and body shape switched off for under 18s unless they turn them on, and a coach never sees an athlete's body data through a team.

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