The reason I bring this up is the constant queries I receive for programs that don't require a weight room and that can be monitored by the coach or done at home.
Over the past few months, I've been asked to develop strength and conditioning programs for clubs, teams and individual athletes. No problem, this is what I do. The reason I bring this up is the constant queries I receive for programs that don't require a weight room and that can be monitored by the coach or done at home. Have I got your juices flowing? I hope so. If the athletes can train on the field or the court at the end of practice the coach can be sure of two things.

#1 - The athlete is indeed doing the workout and
#2 - The exercises are being done with proper form.

One of the golden rules of strength and conditioning floating around out there in the minds of some (not all) sport scientists is; body weight before external load. This simply means that before we hit the weights (external load), we develop a solid base from which to build, using only body weight exercises (building the foundation). This makes a lot of sense to me and is one of the philosophies of the FIT2PLAY system.

Sounds like a good philosophy, so how does it work? How do you keep the interest of our young aspiring and/or elite athletes without the use of a traditional weight lifting program? No problem, as long as you have some balls… Swiss-balls, power balls and medicine balls. Swiss-balls have been around quite a long time. Years ago they were primarily used in the physical therapy world. In the world of strength and conditioning, their applications are endless.

The same goes for medicine balls. For those of you not familiar with either type of ball, the Swiss-ball is a big round plastic ball usually 45-75 cm. in circumference. While med-balls typically are the size of a #3 soccer ball to a pumpkin and weighing 1-15 pounds.

If we wanted to be really creative and time efficient, we could design a workout on the field or court that would include speed, agility, quickness, and even strength and power. To do this we would add a couple of agility ladders, some hurdles, cone configurations and a few sprints, hops and jumps. Let's not forget the Swiss-ball, med-ball and one of my favorites, the power ball. There you have it, a simple and time efficient strength and conditioning program that can be adjusted to all levels. This program is extremely functional, as well as practical. I guarantee this will be a workout that athletes will love, and yet will still find very challenging. As a matter of fact, this is a big part of Brian McBride's workout and will continue to be until he goes back to England in January.