STRENGTH TRAINING
Record Weight Room PRs on Your Players’ T-Shirts BY DAN GUTTENPLAN, FNF COACHES EDITOR
Most coaches motivate their players to set weight room PRs by posting scoreboards with max lifts. One coach in Texas has found an innovative way to get players to lift more: Make them wear the scoreboard.
M
ark Torres knew he wanted to make the
weight room a highly competitive environment when he took over as head coach at Pebble Hills High (El Paso, Texas) in 2016. Not only did he want to see more participation in the offseason program, he also wanted to see more passion. If a player slacked off, he wanted him to wear it -- literally. “We put the bad stuff on the back of a Spartan Made t-shirt because that’s the stuff you shouldn’t want anyone to see,” Torres said. “We want the front of the shirt to be as messy as possible because that’s the good stuff. What’s on the back should embarrass you.”
WHAT’S ON THE FRONT? Bench, Squat, Power Clean, Dead Lift, Warrior
Phase 1: “We bench, squat, power clean and deadlift every week,” Torres said. “During what we call ‘Phase 1’, we do a basic progressive overload by upping the weight and lowering the reps each week. We test on all four of those lifts at the end of Phase 1. That’s when we write in the PRs on the shirt -- a 1-rep max on whatever the lift is.” Phase 2-4: “Not every kid will be peaking on the same day during our max testing period. We learned that the hard way. So, we let the kids try to PR whenever they expect to hit it. We could be doing power cleans in the 70 to 75% range. If a kid decides he feels good and can outdo his max, he can do it right there on the spot. Then, we cross out the number on power clean and add in a new one. The idea is you’ll get a PR
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when your body is physically ready to do that. We’ve had a positive response from kids by having that motivation on their chest.”
WHAT DOES ‘WARRIOR’ TRACK? “Under Warrior, we put a check mark for an awesome day,” Torres said.
WHAT’S ON THE BACK? Loaf, Absent, Non-Participant
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? “Everything on the back is negative,” Torres said. “If a kid skips a workout, we
tally an absence. If the trainer doesn’t say a kid can’t lift but he shows up unprepared, it’s a non-participant. If he’s not spotting as well as he could or not encouraging a teammate, it’s a loaf.”
DOES IT WORK? “We encourage the kids to make the front of their shirts as ugly as possible,” Torres said. “That’s the badge of honor. The stuff on the back says you’re not working hard, you’re absent, or you’re choosing a way out. Our numbers go up big-time when the kids know they have a chance to improve every day. They don’t target days to work hard. They compete with themselves every day.”
