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| High School - Long Jump |
Andy and I both coach high school
athletes. I am the head volleyball
coach, and he is the head Track & Field coach (and I his sole assistant
coach). We had the high school athletic
experience, but we also had the experience of college athletics. Since then, I also have had the continued
experience of post-collegiate competition.
These athletic experiences have taught us a lot. When we look back at our high school sporting
memories, we shake our heads a bit at ourselves. Hindsight shows us just how clueless we were,
and working with high school athletes today, we are continually reminded of
this. I think Andy and I both wish at
times that we could take our level of experience and knowledge and be able to
go back and apply it to our former teenage selves – and kick a lot of butt in
the process. While we can’t do that, we
do strive to teach the student-athletes that we work with much of the knowledge
we wish we could go back and teach ourselves.
Here I’d like to share some of our take-aways:
1)
What you think is hard, isn’t really all that
hard. It’s all relative. If I had to do college workouts when I was in
high school, I’d have started to learn what hard work really looks like when it
comes to training. It took me 3-5
college years to acclimate to the college level of training, but the rewards
were phenomenal. Somewhere amongst those
college years, I actually became a real athlete. Now a lot of my training is a lot longer in
duration, but it can still be super intense.
I have learned to dig deep and suffer like I never have before.
2)
Lifting will turn you into a beast. I mean this in a good way. It can really transform the type of athlete
you are and take you to a whole different level of athleticism. The benefits of a good, consistent weight
training program are immense and should not be overlooked.
3)
Sleep has ALWAYS been important to me. Even in
college, when it was bedtime, I just went to bed. I never pulled a single all-nighter. However, some athletes do not understand just
how important sleep is in the recovery process and getting the body ready for
the next training session. Having a kid,
whether newborn or sick, makes one really realize how much of a difference
sleep makes. Make sleep a priority.
4)
Nutrition.
While I know proper nutrition is important, I didn’t know how big of an
effect proper fueling and refueling could have.
Proper fueling gets your body optimally primed to train and
compete. Proper refueling helps your
body to not only fully reap the benefits of your workout, but it also aids your
body in rebuilding and repairing so you can recover faster and be better
prepared for the next training session.
I grew up on a dairy farm, but since we got our milk straight from the
bulk tank, we didn’t ever buy chocolate milk or drink much of it (except at
school where it was available).
Fortunately, I married young to a man whose second love is chocolate
milk, and it has since been a staple in our house. Chocolate milk is being marketed as a
top-of-the-line recovery beverage because of its ideal ratio of carbohydrates
to protein. The carbs refuel your body,
and protein repairs and rebuilds muscles.
On top of that, chocolate milk also provides calcium, potassium, sodium
and magnesium. Some endurance athletes
consume salt tablets or take magnesium supplements (to increase energy and
endurance), but with chocolate milk, you get both. Many athletes (including me still), tend to
eat a lot of bananas for the potassium to help prevent fatigue and muscle
cramping. Calcium is also important to
build and maintain strong, dense bones.
With chocolate milk, you get the benefits of all of these elements – in
one place! It doesn’t get any easier (or
tastier!) than that.
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| Definitely High School... much to learn! |
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