Teaching Mental Toughness and Discipline in off season

There's a book, a series actually, called Winning State. I have used the wrestling version and our HC bought the football version during the season to try to implement it this offseason. I took 15-20 min 2-3 times a week to talk about the concepts during the wrestling season.

It's simply titled, Winning State football.

Mental toughness to me is just not giving up when giving up would be easier.  I know that is a very generic description, but it seems to fit the definition.  Discipline is doing what you are told to do, when you are told to do it.  So with that in mind, just make sure that you have expectations (discipline) such as being in the weight room ready to go a 2:56 - not 2:57 or 3:00, but at 2:56.  Times like that set a very specific and easy to remember start time.  Kid shows at 2:57, see ya tomorrow 'cause we are already working.

Discipline and mental toughness, say you give them a very specific workout that you know can be done - WITH A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT - in 25 minutes.  Tell them that they have 25 minutes to get it done.  Forces them to hit a time (discipline) while pushing themselves to finish properly and on time (mental toughness).  

Say what you mean, and mean what you say.  Don't accept excuses.  Seems like a good starting point to me. 

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one way we focused on developing mental toughness was simply putting them in situations where it would be easy to quit or to give less effort and demanding more. I know most of us do these things but we really emphasized it, for example during the summer we did not have one get together or activity where we did not condition. Even when we met to lift, after working out we would go outside and run some sprints. When practice started we conditioned after practice every day-doing things that were very difficult. Talking about things like gassers, 100's, timed sprints conditioning things that we used to do back in the day when kids were tough. While we conditioned we repeatedly talked about being "tough enough" to work harder than all the teams around us. We would bring up things like "I bet ______ high school isn't working this hard right now" ______ school isn't man enough to run 5 more of these are we? constantly talking with the kids about pushing themselves farther and harder than everybody else. We really like to use the quote "if it was easy everybody would do it- everybody doesn't win, winning isn't easy this is what it takes. 

we even got compliments from other coaches when, after a long day of team camp we had our kids sprint the width of the football field while all the other teams were getting on the bus to leave for the day. talk about sending a powerful message "we work harder than you" kids loved that. 

This really paid off for us, our kids had an understanding of what it felt like to be "exhausted" and they knew how to push through that- we had a team that could keep on rolling, blocking power or sprinting after tackles in the 4th quarter because we were mentally tough- knowing how to respond when times get tough. 

Yes some kids were chased off, the ones that don't want to work will quit but the ones we had left were tough and played like it. 

Stuff you said sounds great! Do you worry that you will run off kids? We don't have many athletes so my fear is lack of numbers.. Thoughts?

The only thing I don't like about this, well it's THE thing I don't like about this, is that kids are great at sensing BS.  Every winning program or good football team is working hard in the off season, and kids know that.  I get what you are doing, but my personal preference is to not do the whole "nobody else is working this hard" routine.  I just get tired of hearing a coach yell this over and over.

I am not smart enough to articulate exactly what I am trying to get at, but I would rather motivate the player to outdo himself on a daily basis, and not worry about what the other teams are doing.  I want my players to work harder today than they did yesterday, not because team X is working hard, but because my guy needs to push himself to be better than he was.  

I am not trying to be disrespectful of what you do, because it sounds like it is working well for you.  I just would rather not tell a kid something when I know dang well that the teams we need to beat are working their a$$ off also.  

I also think that the running after camp, and working hard in front of other teams is a great way for your players to showcase a work ethic and put other teams on notice that "we are about working hard and gettin it done around here".  I really like this.

If if works for the OP or anyone else then go for it. We attended a team day camp this year and there was a team there that did that. It was held on weekday mornings so a lot of guys couldn't make all of the days due to school or work commitments or vacations. The school didn't provide a bus so the kids drove. So walking to our cars, after three or four scrimmages, hungry, and preparing to fight traffic to get home, we watched them doing gassers. The impression that it left on our players and coaches was not admiration for their work ethic. We just thought that their coach was nuts. 

The thing about the winning state book I like is that it very clearly lays out things to do. Now it's not gonna give you worksheets, etc, but it puts things very simply for you to apply.

yes that was a fear of ours. When I sat down with the head coach that year That was his main concern. We talked about it and realized the kids we had could handle it. We were in a small school and this group of kids had been coached and put through hard times in the past so we know our "core" group would make it. We did run some kids off but our big thing was selling the kids on our B.S. We really worked hard to get them to buy into the fact that hey what we did last year didn't work (2 wins) and if we keep doing what we have always done- we will not get any better, after all that is the meaning of insanity. So in order to improve the kids understood we must do something different. Our quote of the year was "to achieve more than you have ever had, you must work harder than you ever have." We sold the kids on the idea that if you do this, meaning work harder than ever before and condition every day longer than you ever have we will be successful, we talked about how teams will quite in the 4th when we will be in shape to keep on trucking. Our numbers were lower than before but the kids that remained were tough, physical, and mentally sharp. They could be coached, they could get through hard times and they finished games. I am confident we won 2 if not 3 games that year on conditioning and going hard alone. It was huge for us. 

I will say I think this worked better for us because we were at a small school, big schools may not be able to do the same thing. It also helped that our kids had never been successful so they were hungry to win, and did what it took. 

I like to think that I've created some tough kids in my few years of running the offseason. Being highly organized and specific is key to success, and creating a tough offseason. The Specificity of it can demand mental toughness. I'll give you an example of our weightroom. The kids hustle out, they get to their racks & groups, they know what rack they will be in and what group they will be in(groups of 3). Before ever lifting a weight kids will ALL be to the right of their rack in their groups in pride position(hands behind back, eyes on speaker)facing all in the same direction. This gives creates a sense of discipline and organization and also gives coaches the oppurtunity to explain anything for the day if needed. We are all on the whistle.We blow the Whistle on EVERY rep and the kids count EVERY rep LOUDLY.If we're too quiet it will result in punishment. Everything we do in the weightroom is a group effort. We have 3 lifters per group, each person has a job, 1st person does the lift(squat bench whatever it is) 2 person is the spotter. 3rd person does some type of core exercise usually holds push up position, push ups, 6 inches, planks, lower body mobility( to the right of the rack, feet at the end of the rack all 3rd persons facing the same direction) Coach will yell which lifter is going;FIRST PERSON FIRST SET! Every first person will get set QUICKLY coach will usually literally do a 5 sec countdown, then coach will yell BARS UP! All bars in the house are expected to be up. Whistle blows for reps once EVERYONE IS DOING THEIR JOB, if jimmy joe is the third lifter and is doing a crappy push up postion, EVERYONE will wait the entire weightroom.. before we blow the whistle to start doing reps. gets kids fired up to do things right! Once they are done with their reps, they DONT rack the bars until coach tells them to do so.. again we wont switch or progress until EVERYONE IS DOING THEIR JOB including jimmy joe who is having trouble holding the pushup postion correctly now. When we get all our sets done and its time to rotate exercises we get back into pride position and all rotate the prescribed direction. I am very very particular you must count, you must do your lifts correctly or they dont count. you dont rack the bar until we say so, you dont pick the bar up until we say so. I know some of you guys are thinking holy hell this has to be slow! but honestly its not, and once the kids get rolling we can get 3X5 bench,squat,deads in about 20 minutes of actual lifting time.. I think you can be very particular, very tough on the kids, but at the end of the day convince them that you are trying to make them better.. Talk to the kids as much as possible, correct their effort, tell them why you want them to work hard, tell them why hard work will matter for the rest of their lives. Talk to them in the hallways for no reason, or at lunch be friendly and fun, help them in class. and at the end of the day they'll more than gladly work hard for you..

Caddofox
That's awesome
At my old school we did something like that except we didn't have the third person out doing anything
And after the first week it goes fast