I will be the first to admit.  If more people had the self-discipline, they could do training on their own and possibly get similar results to what I can get them. There is plenty of quality information out there that people can have access to.

That’s why I sell an online speed/strength program for those individuals that can do it on their own.

But, let’s be honest. There aren’t a whole heck of a lot of those people out there. They think they can do it on their own, but it doesn’t turn out quite right. If so many athletes could train on their own, then why do these teams schedule off-season training/conditioning to do with their coaches? Because the athletes WON’T do it on their own.

The school where I help coach the track team is on spring break this week. I wrote out several workouts for the athlete’s to do on their own. Workouts where having a track isn’t a necessity, just running room. It is important that these kids workout next week, because we have our first track meet this coming Saturday.

So how many kids on this track team do you think will do these workouts this week?

All?  ½?  2%? My bet is that it will be closer to the 2% than ½. They’ve got a good workout. I know because I created it. All they have to do is implement it.

I remember my freshman year in high school we got this summer conditioning packet for football. We lived 20 minutes from the school and had a bunch of land so I didn’t go to the summer conditioning much, thinking I would do it at my house.

One of our drills was a 60 yard ladder. I thought it was a drill where you ran up 10 yards, back 10 yards, up 20 yards, back 20 yards, all the way up to 60 yards. That drill sucked.  And I had to do like 10 of them.

So you might think, “Well if you did that all summer, you’d be in great shape come August at the beginning of double sessions.”

That certainly would be true, but because I hated them so much I did them maybe three times. I would conveniently forget about them and choose to do easier runs. And if you think I’m the only kid that would have wimped out, you are dead wrong.

I was training on my own and that was what you get when a freshman trained on his own.

Now if I had bothered to go to the team conditioning. I would have learned that a 60 yard ladder was run up 5 yards, back 5 yards, run up 10 yards, back 10 yards, and run up 15 yards back 15 yards. Add all those up and it is 60 yards. Maybe I would have stuck with that drill if I had known.

There was another time several of us said we were going to lift on our own during the off-season. We’ll put on that muscle from workouts that our high school, uneducated-with-strength-training minds could come up with.

One time, after killing it with a bunch of biceps curls (those important muscles needed for every sport – note the sarcasm) we went to incline chest press. Our buddy was lifting, pushed it beyond what he was capable of doing, and the bar came crashing down on his forehead bouncing on to his throat. It took all three of us to get that bar off of him.

When training on your own goes completely wrong.

Like I said earlier, yes I truly feel that if you had the right program for you, knowing the right progressions, there would be athletes that could train on their own. But, there is certainly a reason why the personal coaching boom has exploded the last 25 years. People know they need a coach.

Like I’ve always said when I was the strength coach for a state championship football team, “Just cause I know about football doesn’t give me the right to walk up to the head coach in the middle of a game and say – I think this would be a good time for a 19 slant.”

You do what your good at and I’ll do what I’m good at – coaching your athlete to get stronger and faster for his/her sport. You could do it on your own, but why waste your time and energy figuring out the right program for you. Let my over 20 years of training put that together and you just do what I say. That way, you’ll know for sure the 60 yard ladder you are running is the right drill for you.

Photo courtesy of Gregor on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stoermchen/