I've made a huge transition back into the high school setting this year, leaving in-person training with my athletes in one town and moving to another. It was a good opportunity, and the timing was right to step back into the public sector. But it's come with some expected (and unexpected) challenges. Namely, how the heck do you manage 50-60 beginner lifters training at one time, with eight racks, ten benches, and a random assortment of Dumbbells? Well, it takes a lot of thought, but from first hand experience it is 100% doable.
When considering this number of athletes, we have to start by creating structure. For us, we assign each kid to a rack, leaving us with 4-8 kids per rack (depending on class/training group size). We assign this based on two factors: individual's height, and their experience/ability. We can have mixed abilities at a rack, or even two varying sets of heights at a rack, as long as the discrepancy is not too big. Once we've gotten everyone assigned to a rack, then we divide the group at each rack into two.
Once we've got two groups at each rack, we can start to program more efficiently. Each athlete is paired closest to height and ability within their rack sub-group, so this allows for less major weight changing to have to be done.
We start by programming one exercise in the rack, and make it a barbell based movement. This can be a squat, bench press, Romanian Deadlift, or Barbell Row. This is completely dependent on which day we are in during the weekly outline (which is an entirely different blog post). Then, we program an exercise outside of the rack which is going to be either barbell or dumbbell based. This can be a DB Bench Press, a Single Arm Row, a Split Squat, etc. We have spare bars, so we can perform many of the same movements in the rack as we can on the floor as long as it's not requiring any support from the rack. Most of the time though, because we don't have many sets of Dumbbells, this also becomes a movement that is done with a unilateral load.
The biggest thing we have to do, is then to make sure those first two exercises don't compete with each other. For example, if the exercise in the rack is a Bench Press, we don't want to be doing barbell or dumbbell rows outside the rack as to not fatigue too much for the main movement in the rack. The nice thing is, based on our structure, we are often alternating between exercises upper and lower body, so interference usually isn't too big a deal. But we do try to avoid fatiguing key musculature which helps create stability during the lift in the rack. For example, we rarely will pair a dumbbell or barbell row with an RDL in the rack. This way the lats don't get too fatigued before working to stabilize the lumbar spine.
Once we have our two main movements, then we can start planning out the logistics. For our big groups, we'll assign the rack sub-groups a station to start at. For example, we may have a Back Squat in the rack and a Single Arm Dumbbell Bench Press outside the rack. We'll have Group 1 at each rack start on the DB Bench, and Group 2 at the rack start with Back Squats. We'll allot a time frame they have to complete the sets in, then they switch stations.
The nice thing is, we can continue to do this down the line. We can do two main lifts, and two supersets of exercises in 60 minutes fairly easily. We just continue our rotation of exercises. So if we keep with the above example, then Group 1 does the DB Bench sets in 10 minutes, Group 2 does the Back Squat sets in 10 minutes. They switch, and repeat. Then, Group 1 will start with the accessory movements (in this example, we'll use a Single Leg RDL and a Chin Up), while Group 2 starts on the core work accessory (in this example, we'll say Push Ups and Deadbugs). Each group will get 10 minutes to complete their sets, and then they switch again.
The biggest drawback to all of this, while it is efficient, is how you have to take a large amount of demonstration time. I usually end up demoing the main lifts, then having them complete them as stated before. Then we'll pause and I'll demo the next four or five exercises, then we'll repeat the first process. It can lead to confusion when it first gets instructed like this, but if you can focus on what is possible and controlling the timing, you can get a tremendous amount of work done in a very short period of time.
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