The Gym

I've always enjoyed going to the gym.  When I was a freshman in college, my dorm was about 100 yards away from Patten Gym, which has an old dungeon style weight room.  Since other gyms had been built in recent years on campus, the weight room was never crowded and often totally empty.  It was a great place to go to for a study break, after class, after a lower-key practice.  Get in, move some weight, get out.  No one to bother you, just you and your thoughts and the racks.  This was my first exposure to the gym, and this frames how I think about lifting.

One thing I struggle with as a coach is motivating young players to hit the gym.  I think the only player I have come across who could not stand to improve some aspect of themselves in the gym was Cam, and that was because of his severe injury history.  (Which, to his credit, he overcame during his undergrad career and was able to contribute to NUT in his senior year).

I think that most players, regardless of whether they are an all-star athlete or a true rookie, don't understand how much better going to the gym can make them.  As a coach, I have a hard time describing this untapped potential to a new player.  I think if a true rookie works extremely hard and never hits the gym, doing things like throwing regularly, hard conditioning and sprint workouts, footwork workouts, video review, and so on, they will improve along the blue line in the plot below.  I'm calling this the "normal improvement rate", because I think this is the general rate that coaches and captains will expect of young, hardworking players.  

If our true rookie also hits the gym, I think they can jump up to the red line, the "surprising improvement rate".  This level of improvement is hard to predict, in part because it happens a lot less often, and in part because people have a hard time understanding how others can improve athletically.  Notice there is a huge amount of untapped potential if a player does not train in the gym.

I'm leaving a lot out here.  The lifting program that is used is obviously hugely important.  Players certainly don't need their own private dungeon gym to get strong.  And, lifting by itself probably won't make our rookie a better ultimate player.  (Note: For some people I think this is false, training in the gym by itself probably can make them much better ultimate players.)

My current best theory is to try to explain and demonstrate the value in training in the gym.  My hope is that once the value becomes apparent, intrinsic motivation will follow.