High Performance Assessment Tests
I visited a top-level high school program and watched the team conduct several assessment tests during a recent strength training session. Here are my observations.
A short while back I had the opportunity to observe a baseball strength workout at a local high school. I was interested in seeing how the team approached strength training with their players, and was invited by the head coach to visit and ask questions.
I was surprised that the baseball team had their own dedicated strength coach that helps the team run its training workouts. I was also impressed by the weight room at the high school because it was modern, recently renovated, and had the same kind of equipment I have seen at large college programs. They even had their own custom school-branded olympic barbell plates!
It turns out that session also happened to be the day they were conducting assessments. They had four tests lined up for the day. The team separated into three groups to cover three of the four tests: standing broad jump, 5-10-5 agility drill, and standing vertical jump. The fourth test was a 30-yard spirt, that obviously could not be run inside of the weight room.
I first observed the broad jump. They had a mat with measurements printed on it (a standard measuring tape would have sufficed, but the mat did make reading distances much easier). The athletes would stand at the line, make their attempt, and would have to stick the landing in order to count the distance. This test matched what we had measured with our boys.
The second was the 5-10-5 which required three cones, a stopwatch, and ten yards of space for the cones. The athlete started in the middle and would run to one side (5 yards), touch the ground, run to the other side (10 yards), touch the ground, then run back through the middle cone (5 yards). I actually had not seen this drill before, but appreciated the demonstration of agility and speed. It is a relatively simple test to run with minimal equipment.
Third was the vertical jump test, one that has always been my favorite as a former volleyball player. It is a difficult assessment to conduct as it requires specialized equipment to accurately measure jumps. The team provided some kind of force plate mat where the athlete would stand on before jumping as high as he could, straight up. When the player landed back on the mat, the coach was able to immediately read the measured height directly from the device.
Finally, the entire team moved to the gym, set up three lanes, and measured 30 yard sprints from one end of the gym to the other. The coaches stood at the finish line, stopwatch in hand, and recorded the times as each athlete ran through their lane on their respective turns.
This was a good experience for me to observe and see that we were doing the right kind of thing years back, when we measured our boys performing those handful of tests. It also helped me to see that standardized tests can easily differ between programs, and even sports, so assessments are not as simple as performing a single set of tests with every athlete. As it was the middle of the semester, I would imagine the team measured their numbers every couple of months to track progression.
As a side note, the football team was also in the weight room that day, filling up the other half of the space. They had their workouts displayed on a large flatscreen television, as the boys performed their exercises. It is an entirely different thing to conduct a workout session for such a large group, but those are thoughts for a different post.