Weights or Film?

Interested to see what others say besides both. I'd lean towards film as a weight training class & off-season program should already be in place.

I agree with wolverine.

One on one day, the other the next. Is that an option here?

I understand the question and it is a tough one. If we are speaking hypothetically, I guess I would have to pick film given that we can do weights out of season and still do pushups, lunges, drive the sled, etc. during practice.

Being strong is huge, but knowing what you are doing and your opponent is doing is more important.

My guess is this is not a hypothetical question though and has to do with limited amounts of time.

Just 20 minutes of weights a week can provide tremendous benefits and probably is 80-95% as effective as most in-seasons programs. You can do one set of bench, squats, cleans, pullups, press, and abs in 20 minutes easily. Just put your 8-12 rep weight on the bar and rep out with it. Since it is higher reps, you can get away with no warmup sets.

Watch your game film on Saturday mornings or on the weekend sometime. Make a cutup of the opponents film. You can usually make a very effective cutup in about 50-70 plays. Roughly 10 special teams plays, 10 defensive plays, and 30 or so offensive plays. That will only take you 20-30 minutes to review. Also, Hudl will really save you. Watch the cutup once with the team to make points, and then put it on the players to watch. Or even better, put your pointers on notes on the plays and make them watch it.

Weights or film is a tough choice. There are ways to make sure both happen. Both are imperative to me and I am even willing to sacrifice some practice time to make sure it gets done.

Please tell me, if this is an actual realistic question, that your team doesn't do warmups and active stretching and static stretching for 20 minutes, but forgoes weights or film. LOL

Coach, kind of a vague question here.  What do  you mean by film, and what do you mean by weights?

Just to expand a little. High school aged kids and younger get very very little out of film. We as coaches wish and hope that's not true, but that's reality. The majority watch the ball like they are watching an nfl game on tv.

Coaches get far more from film. If I had to choose film or weight's for the players, it's weight lifting. The players would get the info they need from us walking through the opponents formations, best plays, and who their best players are. And any tendencies or tells they have. Weights are much more beneficial.

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Weights ==> I could always focus on basic alignment rules and assignments instead of team specific tendencies if I really had to.

Even as a strength coach, I would choose film in season. We use position specific work sheets to help kids deal with the "sportscenter effect." We started that this year and the kids seem to be much more detail oriented when we talk about our opponents, so I feel like it is working.

Why not both?  

We lift everyday Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - 2:25 - 2:45 

Film Everyday from 2:50 - 3:15..

On the field at 3:30 for  practice until 5:30...

We also do film after practice too... 

I really like the idea of the worksheets. Would you care to give an example of what one looks like?

I made the linebacker worksheet and it starts out by identifying the teams offensive philosophy and determining the top three plays that lbs need to stop in order to win they then write down three examples of hudl clips of teams defending those plays well and poorly. It then goes into general formation/dd tendencies as we'll as redzone stuff. We give them an opportunity to voice their opinion as how to stop somethings. If a linebacker believes he can get their on a specific blitz and it's not completely idiotic will give it a shot. It gives them a little ownership of what is happening in the field. We then look at their o line as group and identify the "mommas boy" we can pick on with examples as well as finding their stud they like to run behind with examples. I like this because it forces them to focus on their guard reads and how they block up plays. This section is where they really watch each play multiple times and it burns into their head what the other team is going to do

Like some of the others, I'm trying to figure out if this is reality, or if you are just trying to find out what we think is more important. For us I would say weightlifting hands down. While I love film study with the kids, I feel I can coach it on the practice field.