The good folks over at ASAP Athletic Strength and Power went to Auburn recently to talk weight room philosophy and tour the weight room with Ryan Russell, the head strength coach for the football program and came away with some good stuff.
When Russell was asked what advice he would give high school coaches starting a weight program he shared an interesting nugget of information specific to the Auburn program that would interest a lot of our audience.
"I would tell them to be super simple; push-ups, chin-ups, all body weight exercises. That's the first thing, when guys come into our program they're implemented into the Stage 0 program and we're going to hammer the basics."
"We always tell our guys right when they get here that 'You're going to be brilliant at the basics'. We want guys that can move their body weight through a full range of motion."
"We don't care if a guy can bench 450 when he gets here, he better be able to do 20 strict push-ups because they're not going to be benching that whole first summer that they're here. They'll learn to be good with their own body weight and then once they get those things right, the other things fall in place." Russell explained.
Plenty of more quality stuff from coach Russell, including his unconventional first thought after the famous Iron Bowl field goal return, in the interview below.