It’s recently been brought to my attention that a number of my
athletes won’t be joining us at Heilman’s Performance for our annual 10 Week
Summer Program. These are athletes that have worked hard for me in the past,
achieved notable progress, and as far as I know have enjoyed their time
training at Heilman’s Performance. As more and more athletes in our public
school systems informed me that they wouldn’t be attending the summer strength
and conditioning program, conversation about why naturally developed. The
reasons these athletes aren’t training at our facility this coming summer
troubles me.
As a business, any time a client decides to discontinue
use of our services, we want to try and understand why. If we have
overpriced the market or provided that athlete a disservice, we want to know so
we can make a change and make things right. Through conversation, we came to
find that these athletes weren’t unhappy with our services or the price. These
athletes were making the decision to discontinue their training with us because
they felt pressured to do so.
I’ve come to find that many of these athletes are hesitant to
train with us because they feel the consequences of doing so may be affect their playing time during their competitive season. If this is not
the message our coaches have intended to send then they have miscommunicated,
because this is how a plethora of athletes feel. Whether purposeful or
accidental, the number of times the term “playing time” has come up in my
conversations leads me to believe that the threat has been in some way
articulated to these kids. This leaves me both upset and disappointed with our
public service officials.
I wanted to write something to the parents and young athletes of
the surrounding community so they understand that they have a choice. Before I
explain to you why it’s important you exercise your right to choose where you
train for your offseason, I want to diffuse an allegation that will assuredly
be thrown in my face.
If you
think that I’m just another private business owner concerned about his bottom
line, I want you to know that you are dead wrong. I’ve had opportunities in the
past to make more money for myself and have turned them away because of the
effect they may have had on my freedoms and happiness. This is not and never
will be about money. One of the opportunities offered to me was a buy out offer
from a private corporation’s human performance department in Minot. The offer
came with a significant salary increase, eradication of my debt, a flashy
title, and the opportunity to coordinate the performance training for the
public school system. I could have sold out (literally), but I turned it away
because I was happy where I was. So again, before you think I’m writing this
for my own good, please know that not all of us are in private business to make
money. Some people get into entrepreneurship for the freedoms, challenges, and
excitement of building something they can be proud of.
Athletes,
you have the right to choose where you conduct your off-season training. Here’s
why:
1. Consequences
can’t be attached to something that can’t be made mandatory.
Athletes everywhere need to understand what
they can and cannot be leveraged into doing. Every sport at every level has
some type of governing body that is put into place to protect and serve the
athletes’ best interests. At the professional level there are player’s
associations and at the collegiate level there are restrictions on training and
practice hours set forth by the NCAA along with student-athlete governing
bodies assembled to ensure the athletes have a voice and are being treated
fairly. For example, Minot State University has the SAAC (Student Athlete
Advisory Committee). As a high school athlete in this community, your governing
body is the North Dakota High School Activities Association. The NDHSAA puts
forth restrictions on when exactly coaches can make practice and training
“mandatory” for a sport that takes place during a specific season. As far as I know, Fall sports like football and volleyball technically can’t make anything
mandatory for high school athletes until August 1st. If you are
being told that you HAVE TO be somewhere before that date, you are being
misinformed. From the time summer vacation starts to August 1st, you
should be free to choose what you do with no consequences attached.
2. Choosing
where you train may be the only way to grow.
I’m in
no position to tell you that training in one environment over another is what’s
best for you. I’ve never set foot in the public school weight room or my
competitor’s weight rooms while off-season training is being conducted so to
tell you who offers the best environment for you would be, at best,
speculation. You do need to understand though that you have the right to
choose. I think there are 3 archetypes that should be encouraged to seek
alternative training methods:
A.
If
you’re an athlete who is on the bubble of being cut from the team, I don’t
think a one size fits all program (doing exactly what the person you’re chasing
is doing) is going to help you avoid cuts. Finding a way to earn a leg up on
your competition is a necessity for you to ensure you get to continue playing
the sport you love.
B.
If
you’re an athlete who has the potential to receive an athletic scholarship to a
university, seeking alternative methods to separate yourself from the pack
shouldn’t be frowned upon, it should be applauded. Investing your money now to
save money on tuition later is a fine plan. School loans come with an interest
rate attached (albeit a low one) that you’ll probably pay well into your
mid-life. Nobody should make you feel bad for trying to cut future losses.
C.
Most
importantly, if it is your first year navigating a weight room, one-size fits
all programs might be the worst thing for you. Exercise prescription and great coaching
are the best ways to ensure young athletes learn to properly load the
neuromuscular system without excessive stress to the connective tissues.
Learning to move properly under load at an early age can be the difference
between having and not having a long healthy athletic career.
3. Choosing
where you train keeps the marketplace competitive.
Have you ever played on a team in which an
athlete has never had to compete for his/her spot? I have, and with nobody to
push them, that athlete rarely improves and often times regresses. Anybody who
understands anything about economics will tell you this: healthy
competition in a marketplace breeds growth and a lack of healthy competition
breeds complacency. If you are
feeling pressured to train at a particular venue and you succumb to that
pressure, the unintended consequence will be a watered down training
environment. If the only reason you are training in a specific environment is
because you feel you HAVE TO BE, it gives your strength and conditioning
provider no reason to continue to improve. Your freedom of choice is the
only reason people providing human performance services have to keep getting
better.
Look, I know that by writing this I’ll be under a
lot of scrutiny. Coaches will probably feel like I’m trying to undermine them
and rally local athletes to become disrespectful and entitled. My relationship
with local coaches is important to me so it’s important that athletes and
coaches alike know that this is not my intention. My only intention is
to inform athletes and parents that they should be given the right to choose
how they pursue their athletic development without any consequence. I think
it’s a good thing that coaches encourage our athletes to train in
the facilities provided by our public school system. I also think it’s a good
thing for those athletes to understand that they’re able to respectfully explain
that they are choosing to train somewhere else during their
offseason. When athletes start to feel that they can’t do that, we have done
them a disservice.
I think disagreement and passionate discussion is
the best way to continue to push forward. I opened Heilman’s Performance three
years ago because I wanted to offer the community I grew up in something
different that athletes could take advantage of. Something that, if I had
access to growing up, I would have never left. Because I know there will be
disagreement and what most of those disagreements will entail, I’d like to explain
my stance before my house gets egged.
Teams HAVE
to train together to win.
As both a high school and college athlete, when it
came to competition time I rarely thought “Hey, was this guy lifting with me
all summer?” The only thing that mattered to me is that the guy who was playing
was the guy who earned that right. The best players played, whether they
trained with me or not. Great athletes want to WIN, that’s it, if the guy next
to them offers them and their team the best opportunity to WIN, they couldn’t
care less where they lifted their weights. I dropped the rah-rah stuff a long
time ago.
Colleges
and professional organizations tell their athletes they have to train with them
in the offseason.
I work as an assistant strength and conditioning
coach for a university and have done internships with professional
organizations and can tell you, you’re wrong again. The NCAA only allows us at
the college level to make certain times of the year mandatory. We encourage
athletes to stick around and train with the university, but attach no
consequences to their decision. Likewise, the collective bargaining agreements
in almost all professional leagues give their athletes freedom to pursue
training and treatment from whoever they so choose during their off season.
They’re sent on their way and given a specific date to report back to the
organization with which they are affiliated. When they report back, the best
players are the ones who play no matter where they trained.
Private
human performance venues are grossly overpriced.
This is a matter of opinion and for the parents and
athletes to decide. To tell people that they’re throwing their money away by
training with a private venue when you’ve never set foot inside that venue is
unfair. At Heilman’s Performance we put our athletes through a refined
screening and assessment process that allows us to determine what exercise
prescription best fits a particular athlete on an individual basis. If parents
and athletes determine that this provides more value, despite its price tag,
they should be allowed to make that decision devoid of consequences.
I understand that there are more pressing issues facing the
world today than the issue this writing covers, so a number of people will roll
their eyes at it. I want you, the reader, to understand that it may not be
important to you, but it’s important to me and the young people I work with. Some
of them and their parents are feeling pressured to make a decision they don’t
want to make and I just want them to know that they have the freedom to choose.
The young people of our community work hard and deserve every
opportunity they can afford to achieve their goals, taking those opportunities
away from them is doing the public a disservice. I’m sure by writing this I’ll
lose some friends, but as the saying goes:
“If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader – go sell
ice cream.”
As always thank you for reading,
Caleb Heilman
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