Football is a collision sport, and it is inevitable that your team is going to have to deal with injuries at some point during this football season. Early in my career, I was very hands off with students who had any type of serious injury mainly out of pressure from parents to leave that child alone during the injury period. The high school setting is very unique in the sense that, as a coach, you still deal with parents in a large capacity. The majority of parents would not want their child doing anything in terms of strength training if they were out with any type of serious injury. Fortunately, times have changed in terms of how to deal with a serious injury, and what protocol to take when training to get the athlete back onto the field.
Our athletes at Battle Ground Academy know that we are going to continue to train after injury, and it is the culture we have created with our student body. We design alternative workouts dealing with upper extremity injury, lower extremity injury, and of course, back injuries. We are very cautious with all of these injuries, and we follow all of the guidelines set forth by the doctor and our athletic trainer. This would be an example of how we change our workouts up in order to accommodate our injured athletes:
Regular Workout
Clean Deadlift 6×5
Overhead Squat 5×5
Chin Up + 1 Arm Row 4 x10
Russian Lean 3×10
T, Y, and A Raise 3×10
Modified Workout (Upper Extremity Injury)
1 Arm Kettle Bell Deadlift 6×5
1 Arm Kettle Bell Overhead Squat 5×5
1 Arm Lat Pull-down + 1 Arm Row 4 x10
1 Arm Kettle bell RDL- 3×10 (possibly Russian Lean depending on severity of the injury)
1 Arm T, Y, and A Raise 3×10
Modified Workout (Lower Extremity Injury)
1 Leg -Leg Press 6×5
1 Leg Pistol Squat 5×5
Chin Up + 1 Arm Row 4×10
1 Leg- Leg Curl 3×10
T, Y, and A Raise- 3×10
Modified Workout (Back injury – this is more of a rehabilitation workout depending on restrictions)
Band Kettle bell Deadlift- 6×5 (The band takes the pressure off of the back and puts it onto the legs)
Belt Squat 5×5
Lat Pull-Down 4×10
Leg Curl 3×10
T, Y, and A Raise- 3×10