Why You Should Assess (Test) Your Athletes

Apr 28

Preface: This blog is speaking mostly to high school football coaches because of the high involvement and acceptance of strength and conditioning in their programs, but any coach can and should assess their athletes.

Measurements have long been, and continue to be, a fixture in our society. From water levels and car speeds to, of course, wins and losses. We’ve all seen, heard or lived the before and after amazement that people seek when they are on a fitness journey. Scheduled measurement and remeasurement is a regular occurrence at a doctor’s office when treating their patients for post-op physical therapy, for example. We use assessments in all facets of life, so why do some still resist this valuable feedback with their sports teams?

My thoughts:

They lack the understanding of how to make adjustments based on the results they get.
They aren’t willing to put in the effort to schedule and administer tests, then analyze results.
They think they can’t get good information because of budget or equipment/space availability.
They have a fixed mindset against it.

The godfather of strength and conditioning, Boyd Epley, once said, “How do you know that your program is working if you aren’t testing?” Side note: You should know that Coach Epley was the brawn behind the glory days of Nebraska Football (Husker Power). Despite the prevalence of analytics throughout major levels of sports (and the publicity surrounding it), some more classical and conventional coaches choose not to see the value in it. Here’s a test that coaches use every week for evaluation - games! So, that’s your in-season assessment or the bare minimum. Your off-season assessment should be a well-thought out myriad of physical tests that are proven (I’ll touch on that later) and feasible for you.

The off-season gains are important for the in-season stats. A coach on a recent consult call with me used this phrase when referring to training, “wins are made in the off-season.” This is a great starting point. You can definitely track weight used during an exercise as a means of measuring progress. However, bicep curls don’t add much to your on-field football performance. Instead, track the main lifts. “Core lifts” is a common term for them - Squat, Bench and Deadlift. Side note: I wouldn’t train or test Olympic weightlifting movements or derivatives unless you are certified or have a certified professional teaching and supervising them. Deadlift and Squat are precursors to these anyways, so you should begin with proficiency in those core lifts first.

Lifting isn’t the end all be all though. Strength adds to your potential as a player but doesn’t guarantee a transfer to power and speed for your sport. This would be why you should also have a speed, agility, plyometric and conditioning program to pair with your strength training. Given all of this, you should test jumping and sprinting capabilities, as well. Your upper body strength gains should be noticed on the field. Moreover, your lower body strength gains should be easily observed through the power output assessments; more commonly vertical jump, broad jump, sprints and change of direction. These tests help you prove that strength has become functional power and speed, not just a quality that didn’t make it out of the weight room.

Let me be honest with you - coaches have been timing 40’s and watching bench press for years. It’s not complicated to set some standards, execute training and assess the progress. For analysis, a coach on staff who has a basic understanding of Excel will do wonders for tracking and processing results. There is value in having data, but what do you do with it? This is the part where your expertise as a coach comes into play. (Additionally, it’s not hard to find certified professionals in your area to get actual help or at least seek guidance from.)

I’m here to tell you that your program will be better by having objective information in addition to subjective information, from experienced individuals. Data and your coaching eye can combine to give you great insights about your team or athletes. That’s the winning combo right there! You know your team and your situation best. The tests give you validation for what’s right and provide critical feedback for what isn’t. The tests you select should come from proven, evidence-based assessments.

How do you find the type of research that will tell you which tests to use? A good place to start is scholar.google.com. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research is another great resource for testing information. Word to the wise: if you’re going to search on Google or find something on social media, be weary of people who don’t cite sources. Reputable people cite sources. Scammers, salespeople and desperate influencers purposefully leave that out. I would say that’s because they have nothing to back their claims.

So you’ve got WHY you should test. Let’s talk quickly about testing procedures…HOW you should go about it.

You need to make sure that your test is repeatable and reliable. Most likely, there will be a lot of variance in your testing because you are using something like a stopwatch, etc. If you time the initial sprint or conditioning assessments, you should be the one to time it again to keep the consistency of the administrator. Starting brainstorming and creating a plan for operating a couple of days or a week of testing. Don’t worry if things don’t go perfectly. They rarely do, but the tests will still be valuable.

Try to take as much self-reporting out of tests as possible. Athletes say a lot of things. They want to be the strongest, the fastest, the best, etc. They’re competitive, and that’s a good thing, but you want to maintain the integrity of results as much as possible. Pro tip: view all testing sets one by one so that you can record the max or make adjustments for the next attempt. Other athletes not lifting could take the opportunity to learn from the rep being done.

Last few things:

Test any equipment out before the first attempt. Make sure that everything is set to go.
Have a system for recording. I like having the last athlete in order record until you get halfway and then have an athlete from the middle of the group to record for the last half.
Have athletes complete a thorough warm up - I mean THEY SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING THIS! I don’t mean just the general warm up, either. They should build up appropriately to the weight or speed required for 100% output of effort.

In conclusion, you should test your athletes if you aren’t already doing so. With prior training and no big gaps in training (i.e. too much time off), it’s completely safe. It allows your athletes to compete and gain confidence through training while you earn buy-in from their progress. Most importantly for you as a coach, it gives you the unbiased tools to make vital decisions about the direction of your team and the value athletes have within your strategic concepts.

- Zack Wallace, CSCS, USAW1

Athletic Performance Specialist

Check out our podcast on this topic here!

Sources:

https://www.mcleodhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The_importance_of_Performance_Testing.pdf

https://simplifaster.com/articles/fixing-mistakes-in-performance-testing/

NSCA Essentials Chapter 12 (Testing)