Working with newcomers to your program

Every off-season is a challenge and one of the biggest challenges is integrating newcomers into your program. This could be transfers, or incoming first-year student-athletes.

It's a challenge and a question I often get asked about..."How do you handle your first-years/newcomers?" It's not easy to integrate, teach and get newcomers ready..especially when the season is right around the corner. 
We as coaches, want them to be ready for the season, but we also want to set them up for future success through properly progressive training that emphasizes foundational training.

There are a number of things that I want to teach our newcomers and feel are necessary to set them up for future success:

1. Teach them how to work hard - most student-athletes think they work hard, when in reality they have no idea of the intensity level they need to bring on a day to day basis for success.  They say "can't", complain, and show discomfort and show defeat too easily on their faces and within their body language.  These are habits that need to be changed.

2. Build Work Capacity - the volume of college athletics is extremely high and these athletes first need to know how to work at a high intensity and tolerate the workload so they can perform day in and day out. We know that having high aerobic fitness allows us to handle chronic workloads. We must gradually increase workloads in a same and systematic progression to ensure that we are increasing work capacity while decreasing the risk of injury.

3. Develop mobility and stability - this is a big one that you never stop working on, but I've rarely seen a newcomer that possessed the needed mobility (hip, ankle, t-spine, shoulder) to properly learn movements and the stability (foot, knee, lumbar, scap) needed to perform these movements with precision.  Newcomers need to learn how to position their body to perform movements safely and in the most efficient manner to stay healthy and have improved performance.

4. Teach them to be independent - it's inherent that you as a coach will spend more time with newcomers teaching them every facet of your program, but how much time are you teaching them to be able to do it on their own?  You can't set everything up for your athletes, count their weight, count their tempos, write their weights in and clean up after them...they will eventually have to do it on their own.  This goes into the actual system that you implement, but teaching them to be independent allows them to self sufficient which makes your job easier and teaches them how to think and act for themselves.

5. Emphasize doing things really, really, really, really well! - You've got one real opportunity to teach your athletes and that is from the start. You've got to emphasize doing things PERFECT from the beginning...foam rolling, joint mobes, warmups, core work, landing mechanics, sprint mechanics, lifting technique, and recovery routines.  Every time you slip in getting them to do things well from the beginning, you aren't ingraining solid habits in them.  If you teach your newcomers, they will teach and reinforce it to the newcomers when they have been established within the program. 

This builds a culture within your program. These are just some of the things that I like to emphasize with newcomers to my program.  I believe that if we emphasize the early development, that it will make things easier down the road.  When you invest time into these athletes, they will be able to help you teach the new crop of athletes that enter your program.