Off season weight lifting surprise...

Just wanting to get some feedback on what off season weight lifting is going on. I was recently in a large 4a high school weight room less than one hour after school let out and there were only 3 football players in lifting. Three guys lifting seemed increadibly low to me. Seems like I remember back in the day most schools I knew of would have had 20-40 kids lifting this time of year. Is what I saw typical? Have things changed that much in 20 years? I'll bet the better football schools have packed weight rooms this time of year.

Whats typical for the better programs around the state?

 

Well it depends on the school situation and the amount of athletes playing other sports.

If you have 5 football players on the basketball team (JV and varsity), 5 on the wrestling team or even more, and a weight training period where football players workout during school hours, you probably won't have a tremendous amount of kids in there after school.

Also, some kids prefer going to gyms around town because the winter sports teams clutter up the high school gym and then you just have some places where you don't have a solid offseason program.

Weights are one of the most important aspects of a strong program and they need to be super important during the offseason, but I would rather see a kid be involved in several sports the rest of the year than just the weightroom.

That being said, I have no clue about giving you the correct answer you wanted.

 

It also depends on which schools have weight lifting (advanced PE) in their schools. Many times football players are in those classes and therefore get their lifting done during school.

 

Off Season Lifting is vitale to the success to any football team that plans on being good.. you cant build as much strength as you need in two months of summer. What School were you at?.. and i agree that most of the Athletes aren't in the weight room because they're playing other sports

 

The "Block" Schedule Helps...

It’s like Coach Evans is saying, kids lift during the school day. The “Block” schedule at some high schools enable students to take 8 courses a year rather than 6 as it was 20 years ago. With this new type schedule, football players can take weight training all year during the school day and still meet their academic requirements. Most of the “volunteer” work-outs are done now in the summer, when the kids are not in school.

 

At Ragsdale many of the kids wrestle. We have a good program. Many play basketball and baseball starts in December. Most baseball players play football. Also, most of our football players are "highly encouraged" to take weight-lifting for PE both semesters of their soph. and jr. years. My son lifts every day, all year but also has to go to baseball and indoor track.