High School Strength and Conditioning

I worked with a drafted infielder in his first year of professional baseball who was exceptional at fielding and hitting. In training, he did not know how to skip and struggled with body awareness and control in the movements we were asking him to perform.

A substantial part of our work focused on establishing that movement foundation so we could build on it. His baseball skills and his physical-development needs existed side by side.

That experience shapes how I approach an athlete’s starting point. Playing ability tells us something important about the athlete. Observing how they handle the tasks in training gives us additional information about what to teach.

High school strength and conditioning needs clear physical priorities, training that fits the competition schedule, and a way to check whether athletes are progressing. Professional sport offers useful lessons in how to organize that work.

The central question is what the athlete needs to do better. Producing more force, accelerating faster, controlling a landing, or sustaining effort can each deserve attention. The priority depends on the athlete and the sport.

A school coach also has to make those priorities work with limited time, shared facilities, and athletes at different stages of development. The following approach translates published evidence into decisions a staff can use.

Professional organizations differ. Their methods also deserve scrutiny. A practice survey describes what staff do; it cannot establish that those methods produce better results. The principles below combine that coaching experience, published evidence, and practical recommendations for coaches working with developing athletes.

Identify the physical qualities your athletes need

Strength, speed, power, and conditioning all need a reason to occupy training time. Their relative importance depends on the sport, the athlete’s role, and the athlete’s current preparation.

A survey of Major League Baseball strength and conditioning coaches published in 2005 reported widespread use of speed development, plyometrics, and planned strength training. It is a historical snapshot, useful for illustrating the breadth of physical preparation, rather than a description of every current organization. [1]

For a school program, the practical task is to identify a priority clearly enough to coach and assess it. “Improve athleticism” leaves too much unresolved. Improving early acceleration gives a training block a more specific purpose, while still requiring a coach to investigate what may be limiting that performance.

Consider these illustrative priorities, rather than complete prescriptions:

A baseball player might need to improve acceleration over the first few steps.
A basketball player might need more practice controlling landings and stopping before changing direction.
A soccer player might need conditioning that supports repeated efforts across the match.
A volleyball player might need to develop jumping capacity while accounting for jumps already performed in practice.

Each example needs further assessment. The sport alone cannot tell you what an individual needs. In the infielder’s case, our observations pointed toward foundational movement work. I would treat a difficulty with skipping as a task to understand and coach, rather than a general verdict on athletic ability or a prerequisite every athlete must pass before strength training.

Apply it: Choose one priority for the next training block and complete this sentence: “We are developing ___ because it helps this athlete ___.” Keep other necessary qualities in the program, but make the emphasis clear.

Develop strength and assess its contribution

Resistance training can improve physical performance in young athletes. A systematic review and meta-analysis found improvements in strength and vertical jumping, with smaller effects on sprinting, agility, and sport-specific performance. Those differences matter: improvement in the weight room does not translate equally to every task. [2]

My recommendation is to track the trained quality alongside a relevant performance measure. If strength is improving while acceleration remains unchanged, investigate the program, sprint exposure, testing conditions, and time available for adaptation before declaring success or failure.

A stronger athlete has gained a physical capacity. The next coaching question is how that capacity contributes to the sport.

Apply it: Pair a consistent strength-training record with one relevant field or court assessment. Agree on the review date before the block begins. A change in one measure can inform the discussion without explaining the entire performance.

Fit development into the athlete’s actual week

Practice, games, school commitments, and outside training shape what an athlete can complete and recover from. Planning the lifting session in isolation leaves important work unaccounted for.

The training-load monitoring consensus describes a framework for understanding training demands and athletes’ responses. It supports treating monitoring as part of the coaching process. [3]

At school level, I would begin with a shared weekly schedule and a short conversation about what athletes are already doing. A player training with a school team and a private coach needs someone to see the combined week.

In a survey of MLB practitioners working during the 2021 season, managing overall workload was among the commonly reported hamstring injury prevention strategies. That finding describes practitioner behavior; it does not prove that workload monitoring prevents an individual injury. [4]

Apply it: Put games, demanding practices, school lifting, and known outside training on one weekly calendar. Have the sport coach, strength coach, and athletic trainer review conflicts within their roles. Name the person who will communicate any adjustment to the athlete.

Interpret progress in a developing athlete

High school athletes can share a birth year and have very different training histories and stages of maturation. The NSCA’s long-term athletic development position statement emphasizes development appropriate to the individual and sustained participation over time. [5]

That changes how coaches should interpret a test result. A ranking shows performance on a particular task. It does not explain the athlete’s development or determine their ceiling.

I would prioritize sound execution, gradual progression, and the athlete’s own trajectory. Comparisons can provide context, but they should not become fixed labels.

Apply it: Group athletes by coaching needs and demonstrated training competence when useful. Adjust loading and exercise difficulty to their preparation. Avoid assigning identical expectations solely because athletes play on the same team.

Use testing to guide the next training decision

Before adding a test, write down the decision it could inform. Establish consistent conditions and consider normal variation before responding to a change. A single result should prompt questions when the surrounding evidence is unclear.

For a school staff, a useful review could be brief: what quality are we developing, what has the athlete actually completed, and does the available evidence support continuing or adjusting the plan?

For a fuller explanation of that process, see how to turn athlete-monitoring data into useful decisions.

A worksheet for your next staff meeting

Choose one team or training group. Complete these statements together:

Our current physical-development priority is: ___
The planned training addresses it through: ___
The weekly demands we need to account for are: ___
We will assess progress using: ___
The person responsible for reviewing it is: ___
Our review date is: ___

Use that review to decide whether to continue, adjust, or gather more information. Document the reasoning so the next conversation starts with shared context.

I offer workshops and sports-science collaboration for coaches and athletic programs, including Palm Beach County schools. A focused staff session can turn this worksheet into a practical development and assessment plan for your setting.

Sources

Strength and conditioning practices of Major League Baseball strength and conditioning coaches (2005). Historical descriptive survey.
Lesinski et al. Effects and dose-response relationships of resistance training on physical performance in youth athletes (2016). Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Bourdon et al. Monitoring Athlete Training Loads: Consensus Statement (2017). Expert consensus framework.
Hamstring Strain Injury Prevention: Current Beliefs and Practices of Practitioners Working in Major League Baseball. Descriptive survey of practitioners working during the 2021 season.
NSCA Position Statement on Long-Term Athletic Development (2016). Position statement; NSCA resource page published in 2017.