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Post by jjmarzahl on Nov 2, 2017 8:05:07 GMT -6
I am currently H.C at a school that has ZERO weight room. We have the space to put in a weight room but the school will not fund any of it. I am curious if anyone has been in this position and wondering how you handled it?
What were your top priorities?
How did you get funding or raise money?
Where did you have the most luck finding equipment for good prices?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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Post by gators41 on Nov 2, 2017 8:11:32 GMT -6
Major Fund Raising to put in a weight room. Good luck its not going to be easy.
No magic formula, hard work, get quality help, come up with a plan, execute said plan.
Look for gyms that are closing and going out of business. This happens all the time.
Also keep a look out for other high schools that are re doing their weight room. You can get some really good deals there.
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Post by cfoott on Nov 2, 2017 8:19:00 GMT -6
Major Fund Raising to put in a weight room. Good luck its not going to be easy. No magic formula, hard work, get quality help, come up with a plan, execute said plan. Look for gyms that are closing and going out of business. This happens all the time. Also keep a look out for other high schools that are re doing their weight room. You can get some really good deals there. This is also the route I'd take. Maybe craigslist as well? There might be some companies looking to make large donations at the end of this year for tax purposes. Put together a proposal and be ready to talk to them.
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Post by fkaboneyard on Nov 2, 2017 15:22:18 GMT -6
I went through this and had some success. If the school or boosters or whoever won't pay for it you're going to have to raise the $$ yourself. You can do car washes & pancake breakfasts and you'll have a new weight room in about 40 years. Or you can make contact with the right people, kiss a lot of backsides, work your tail off and get it done.
Your first step is you you have to know what you want in the way of a weight room. Do your homework -
Design what the building will look like and then what the contents will be.
Determine your wants/needs for the program and make a list of the wants/needs Explain why you want/need each item Explain what it will do for your program, who it will benefit and how many it will benefit Determine what the useful life of the item is Price everything out, get estimates of everything. Have a solid understanding of what it will cost to acquire and cost to install the item
Since this is going to be a school weight room (and not just a "football team" weight room), get the other sports involved. Get them to understand the benefit of the weight room and have them do some of the heavy lifting - i.e., fundraising.
You don't have a building so star looking for a contractor in the area that would be willing to do the work for you. Once it is built you can either raise money to buy equipment or get people/organizations/businesses to donate equipment directly. You can put a plaque up on the wall acknowledging them "This facility was made possible by the generous contribution of Mr. Boneyard." People love that stuff.
I chased foundations and non-profits. One of my angles was that it promoted a healthy lifestyle to children. I got some of our players involved. I kissed a lot of backsides. I spent hundreds of hours and nobody thought I would be successful but we ended up with a kickass weight room that was the envy of most of the programs in our area. We ended up getting over $100,000 in contributions and ended up spending more than that. It can be done but be prepared to really work for it. Treat potential donors like hot girls - work them as hard as you can but when you realize it's not going to happen move on and don't get down about it. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
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Post by freezeoption on Nov 2, 2017 17:01:33 GMT -6
if you got the room then claim that spot first, you can get started right now if you do it right, put the word out their in the community that you are looking for weight equipment, you will be surprised what people have laying around that they don't want, if you can get some rancher to give up some old horse mats, or can scrape up some money for some, about 30-40 bucks each, you got a place to clean and dead lift, you get some people to donate bars and weights you can get to work, I know people are going to say you don't want crap, and you don't, you will get some, tell them thanks, take it and you may have to sell it for scrap, but you will get some jewels, we done a lot of our weight room that way, bought some stuff here and there when we can get the money, of course fund raising will get you there, we are a small community, the people get hit for everything here, I go to the booster club, which ours covers everything, so I ask for a couple things every year and it is getting better
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Post by vanden48 on Nov 3, 2017 7:33:48 GMT -6
I had to build a weight room basically from scratch once. School thought $5000 was going to get them an awesome fitness facility. When I told them that the floor mats alone would be $5000-$10,000 they were in shock. I had a space already giving to me but it was in no condition to be a weight room yet. The school had some equipment, a squat rack, a bench, and some dumbbells, but nothing major. First thing I did was design a program in year one with out a weight room. There was never a weight program so anything the kids did was beneficial. Remember one thing, unless you get a $100,000 donation, this is a multi year project, you need to think in phases.
Year One
1) I did was much work in the summer outside as I could in the program, focused on using dumbbells and other training devices. 2) I found anything heavy that they could lift. I called up some tire and tractor stores and they were more than willing to get rid of old tractor tires. I loaded up about 6 truck loads, about 12 tractor tires and 12 SUV/small tractor tires. 3) Got the school to purchase about 8 sledge hammers. Not alot of money so they did it. 4) I focused on year one in acquiring new equipment that we could use outside. (Dumbbells) I orders $2500 in new dumbbells and $2500 worth of new adjustable benches. 5) I called every college and gym in the state and looked for who had anything they wanted to give away.
Year two 1) We got our room but it was in no shape to be a weight room, so we needed student and parent volunteer help to Demo the room and paint it. 2) Convinced the administration that if the purchased the pain I would paint it. 3) Found a college that was building a new facility, grabbed all of their old floor mats, racks, and dumbbells. 4) Painted all of the used equipment our school colors after school with players help. Added slogans and things on the racks and benches as well. 5) Demo the new room and painted it with the help of students and parents. 6) Installed all the new "used" equipment.\
Bottom line, unless you have an administration or boosters that have money to blow, a new weight room is going to require a serious time investment on your part. I put in over 1000 man hours into building this weight room, paid off big time, but there were many weekends spent driving to get equipment and painting.
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Post by cfoott on Nov 3, 2017 8:24:33 GMT -6
I had to build a weight room basically from scratch once. School thought $5000 was going to get them an awesome fitness facility. When I told them that the floor mats alone would be $5000-$10,000 they were in shock. I had a space already giving to me but it was in no condition to be a weight room yet. The school had some equipment, a squat rack, a bench, and some dumbbells, but nothing major. First thing I did was design a program in year one with out a weight room. There was never a weight program so anything the kids did was beneficial. Remember one thing, unless you get a $100,000 donation, this is a multi year project, you need to think in phases. Year One 1) I did was much work in the summer outside as I could in the program, focused on using dumbbells and other training devices. 2) I found anything heavy that they could lift. I called up some tire and tractor stores and they were more than willing to get rid of old tractor tires. I loaded up about 6 truck loads, about 12 tractor tires and 12 SUV/small tractor tires. 3) Got the school to purchase about 8 sledge hammers. Not alot of money so they did it. 4) I focused on year one in acquiring new equipment that we could use outside. (Dumbbells) I orders $2500 in new dumbbells and $2500 worth of new adjustable benches. 5) I called every college and gym in the state and looked for who had anything they wanted to give away. Year two 1) We got our room but it was in no shape to be a weight room, so we needed student and parent volunteer help to Demo the room and paint it. 2) Convinced the administration that if the purchased the pain I would paint it. 3) Found a college that was building a new facility, grabbed all of their old floor mats, racks, and dumbbells. 4) Painted all of the used equipment our school colors after school with players help. Added slogans and things on the racks and benches as well. 5) Demo the new room and painted it with the help of students and parents. 6) Installed all the new "used" equipment.\ Bottom line, unless you have an administration or boosters that have money to blow, a new weight room is going to require a serious time investment on your part. I put in over 1000 man hours into building this weight room, paid off big time, but there were many weekends spent driving to get equipment and painting. This is awesome! Nice work coach.
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Post by cwaltsmith on Nov 3, 2017 9:58:31 GMT -6
DYNABODY does great work. They work with you on the money and payment as well. Website is www.Dynabody.com Guys name is HEAVY.
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Post by fantom on Nov 3, 2017 10:06:24 GMT -6
I am currently H.C at a school that has ZERO weight room. We have the space to put in a weight room but the school will not fund any of it. I am curious if anyone has been in this position and wondering how you handled it? What were your top priorities? How did you get funding or raise money? Where did you have the most luck finding equipment for good prices? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Others have a lot more experience at building a weight room but I do have one piece of advice: If the football team is doing all or most of the work, make sure that the football team has priority on using the room.
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Post by CanyonCoach on Nov 3, 2017 10:47:04 GMT -6
I would recommend contacting either the schools welding department or a local business/person to build squat racks, benches, growler/sleds, weighted items for farmers walk etc... We got mats from a farm supply place for a fraction of what most places charge. Finally, we pushed to make weight training a part of the HS curriculum so that the general school funds can be used to support the program.
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Post by 19delta on Nov 3, 2017 17:06:33 GMT -6
I am currently H.C at a school that has ZERO weight room. We have the space to put in a weight room but the school will not fund any of it. I am curious if anyone has been in this position and wondering how you handled it? What were your top priorities? How did you get funding or raise money? Where did you have the most luck finding equipment for good prices? Any help would be greatly appreciated! How many kids in the school? What are you doing for off-season S&C now? Regarding equipment, I would focus on the basics to start. You will need a couple of these: These: These: And these: Pretty much, you can do everything you need with these items.
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Post by hawksrule on Nov 4, 2017 16:32:04 GMT -6
We were in a similar situation 2 year's ago. Our school did an addition and built a huge weight room but didnt to include funding for equipment. So it was either take our old beat up equipment in there which wouldn't have even filled the room or fundraise to buy new equipment. We reached out to an alum that is very wealthy and has some experience in fundraising. He agreed to do a dollar for dollar match on anything we could raise up to $100,000. So we sent out flyers to every alumni we could find an address for, announced it at all events during the fundraising period and got the local paper to do a story about it. We ended up getting over $200,000 in donations after the match and we used that to purchase our equipment. It wasn't easy but the response from our alumni and community was amazing!
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