Serving Students: Why San Diego High School Turned to Weightlifting

The physical education program at San Diego High School (SDHS) has taken massive leaps over the last three years. After struggling with student engagement in the physical education curriculum, the staff started to notice that students responded more and more to strength-building activities. This led to the addition of two training spaces, an investment in equipment, and the birth of the only weightlifting school in the region.

***

Paul Coover, San Diego’s athletic director, noticed early on in his teaching career how the weightroom gave all students a chance to pursue something unique to them. Whether they wanted to socialize with friends or put their headphones in, they could each work toward a goal.

“It's this magical place where all you have to do is add weight and you encounter a new challenge,” Paul said.

Sean Sand, San Diego’s physical education director, joined the staff after 12 years at the middle school level. He ran a typical P.E. program that included several team sports and tried to figure out how to motivate the high school students. As his first year was coming to an end, Sean taught his first weightlifting class.

“Immediately, I saw one of the highest levels of buy-in and interest from the students. All my students were active and engaged no matter their socio-economic or GPA status. Everybody found a home in the weightroom,” Sean reflected. “That to me was enough to say, ‘Okay, we have to think about doing something different.’”

The development of the strength and conditioning program began with a cohesive relationship between Paul and Sean. Paul also teaches several P.E. classes, and Sean is the head coach for boy’s and girl’s tennis.

Just a few years ago, San Diego’s campus only had one gym with wooden floors, so Olympic weightlifting wasn’t a possibility. Before being deployed with the National Guard, Paul made a comment about a specific classroom that could be converted to a weightlifting space. When he returned, he saw that the principal had converted the room and used rubber floors so that weights could be dropped. With support from administration, they created a third training space at their sports fields and stored weights in a storage container on the field. Then came the equipment.

“The principal said, ‘Hey, what do you need to make this elite?’ We said we need $10,000 of Rogue equipment and she said, ‘Done’,” Paul said. “So now we have eight Rogue racks, proper bars, and matching Rogue plates.”

With the ability to rotate between three distinct training spaces, Sean’s curriculum uses the fields as a tactical fitness and outdoor weightlifting focus, the converted classroom for Olympic weightlifting, and the first gym for general body-building.

“What that looked like was initially giving students a choice of classes between team sports, individual sports, and then the weightroom,” Paul said. “Then just by watching the buy-in in the weightroom, we ended up going with three sections of strength and conditioning to every one section of team sports.”

With the addition of Mike Greiner, a new teacher and head coach of boy’s and girl’s volleyball, SDHS is now able to have three teachers concurrently leading 50 students each in three different training spaces on campus. Students in the strength and conditioning sections use all three spaces over the course of a week-and-a-half.

“We will soon look toward getting to the point where every student at San Diego High, as a 9th- and 10th-grader taking physical education, will get a USA Weightlifting-style introduction to the weightroom,” Paul said.

Paul, a USAW-certified Level 1 coach, also leads a weightlifting club for students on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. He and Sean credit the effectiveness of the strength and conditioning program so far to the support they’ve received along the way.

“It has to be bought in at all levels. The administration has to be able to buy into it and the teachers have to be bought into it,” Sean said. “When that happens, that's the magic effect where the students can see, ‘Oh these teachers care and they’re bought in, so I'm going to have to buy in as well.’”

This buy-in isn’t only visible in students that compete in sports. As much as Paul is excited for all of his athletes to get experience in the weightroom, he’s also excited for those being introduced to a whole new world.

“We have freshman girls who've never played a sport that are power snatching 65 pounds and were unable to lift the bar over their head with a push press initially,” Paul said. “It really reinvigorates my love for weightlifting because I see how much [the students are] enjoying it and the joy as they discover new things.”

The effects of San Diego’s strength and conditioning program and the buy-in from everyone involved are apparent when hearing from students that are currently in it.

Sebastian Douglas highlighted how the coaches show up with positive attitudes every day, answer everyone’s questions, and make sure the workouts on the board are understood by each student.

“I think all of the students could agree that the coaches want to see us succeed and they want what's best for us,” the junior said. “We use this as motivation to push ourselves at all times.”

Alejandra Sanchez-Martell added that she has seen as much personal growth as physical growth throughout her time in the weightlifting program.

“From staying consistent with academic work to pushing myself to get a better vertical jump for volleyball, weightlifting has been able to have so many positive contributions to my life - plus it’s cool to be strong,” the sophomore said.

Paul and Sean are excited to see the growth of each athlete’s ability in the weightroom come December, and Sean is proud of the positive reception from students.

“It's clear when you start to talk to them that they believe they are being served in a positive way because of the strength and conditioning curriculum and the challenges that we put before them. That makes me happier and more proud than anything at the moment,” Sean said. “The other things, the other little chess pieces to fall – if we have kids that get into the fitness industry because of it, that's great. If we have students compete in Olympic weightlifting, that's fantastic. If athletes go to college and they can say, ‘Oh, I learned this in my high school class and there are students alongside me that don't even know what a clean and jerk is compared to a snatch’, then I'll be over the moon. But just the general population being served in a way that they can see makes me the most proud for sure.”