Marvin Welch’s path to becoming the strength and conditioning coordinator at Dickinson (Tex.) Independent School District was anything but ordinary. From 1996 – 1999, he played college football and pursued an undergraduate degree in recreational therapy at Henderson State University, before going into the NFL in 2001. During his time playing sports, Welch discovered a love for sport performance development early on.
“I’ve always wanted to see how I could get better, how I could get my teammates better,” Welch says. “Now back then, the Internet wasn’t huge. It was around. It just wasn’t huge. So we would find different articles or books on other athletes and how they trained. I would always kind of take the helm and help my teammates. Hey, look, let’s try this workout. Let’s do this. Maybe this.”
After his career in professional sports, his former Assistant Head Coach at Ball High School offered him an opportunity to coach the running backs and track athletes. He obtained his alternative teaching certification and discovered his passion for passing down the knowledge he gathered during his time in sports. His turning point came under the guidance of strength coach Doug Bull, who encouraged him to further pursue strength coaching by getting his CSCS certification and a master’s degree in fitness and human performance. While attending the University of Houston-Clear Lake for this, Coach John Snelson of Dickinson ISD reached out to express his need for a strength and conditioning coordinator to help the district as a whole. Welch has now spent the past 16 years building the strength program at Dickinson ISD, where he passes down his ever-growing knowledge of sports performance.
“Watching the young athletes come through, they saw that I left football and went to strength and conditioning,” Welch says. “And they were like, ‘Why are you doing it? Why are you doing it, Coach Welch?’ I’m like, ‘well, I get to help more athletes. I get to be around more athletes. I get to help with performance. I get to see it well beyond that.’ I have some athletes who I mentor now and they are strength conditioning coaches.”
Welch’s Approach To Strength Training
Welch believes in tailoring training programs to individual sports, aligning exercises with each athlete’s needs. For football, Welch favors more Olympic movements like cleans to build explosive power. He highlights his use of med ball throws and landmine exercises for sports with a greater focus on shoulder rotations, like baseball. Interestingly, Welch has found that short sprints for volleyball players also enhances their vertical jump performance.
“Let’s say I have a baseball player, we’re doing more prehab with our forearms and our elbows, our posterior, our scapular pulls, those different things, because they do so much throwing compared to when I have a football player,” Welch says. “We do a lot of sprints with our volleyball team. Because that sprinting mechanism teaches them to push into the ground and helps with our vertical. So, that’s huge for us.”
Welch is also a huge believer in periodization. In his approach, he carefully increases and decreases workloads throughout the year to keep athletes progressing without overtraining. There may be ups and downs, but there is always a clear trend toward state-championship performance.
“We may start off the 1st preseason week at, let’s say, 65%,” says Coach Welch. “Week 1, 70%. Week 2, 75%. Week, 3, 80%. And I will go back to 70%. I’m not going all the way back to 65%. Now we’re giving the body and giving the muscles a little more time to rejuvenate. When it gets about their 3rd, maybe 4th week, the body starts to understand, starts to adapt. We won’t have that adaptation, because now we’ve dropped the weight before that adaptation occurs. If we’re at 85%, 80% on the Olympic lifts, It’s no more than 5 repetitions.”
Welch also advocates for creating a definitive training schedule at the beginning of the year to set a clear vision for the season. Every program remains flexible, but Welch and his team always have a backup plan for when unexpected things throw them off track.
“I like to design our programs throughout the year,” Welch says. “I feel like when you plan, and this is just me, it’s easy. It helps you out so much. Because now you’re not guessing. That’s not saying that things don’t change. If it changes, you have a plan that you can mix and match, revert to, and then get back on track, because things happen.”
Keeping It Simple, Fast, and Efficient
When it comes to implementing new tools and technology, Welch has two non-negotiable requirements. It has to build off of what he’s been doing and it has to take up less time. His focus is on keeping things simple to maximize training time and reduce confusion.
“When you have a confused athlete, you have a slow athlete,” says Welch. “If I want to test guys’ flies, then I will use our dasher cameras because those are really simple. I can set them up and I can have people testing either on their phones or on a laptop. But what I’m not going to do is set up 12 different cones with 20 different people timing at the same time. Because now they’ve got to stop, write down, ‘Did you get that? No, I didn’t get that.’ It’s just so much and it causes confusion.”
Welch also stresses the importance of speed training, sprinting in short bursts to minimize injury risks and develop explosive movements. He also expresses the ease of convincing athletes to do short bursts of work rather than prolonged conditioning training.
“We found that sprint sessions lasting over five seconds increase the chance of hamstring injuries, so we tailor everything for quick, explosive efforts.”
Recovery and Nutrition
Welch understands that recovery and nutrition are as important as training. From ensuring athletes understand the value of hydration and sleep to teaching them about macronutrients, Welch is committed to fostering good long-term habits.
“With females, you have to really work with them to get them to buy in,” Welch says. “And I usually need a little help with this. We have a nutritionist that comes in and she helps talk to our female athletes because, our female athletes don’t usually eat a lot during the day. And what they do eat isn’t the best. They don’t mind hydrating, but it’s something about the unhealthy snacks. They love the unhealthy snacks during the day. When we have a female nutritionist come and they see her, they’re like, ‘Oh, okay. I guess I could eat this. And I guess it’s not a problem.’ So, it just takes a little more with our young ladies. With the guys, it’s not as hard with them.”
Welch also finds challenges with promoting sleep in his high school athletes, saying half-jokingly that they do not buy into sleep, unless it’s in class. He also warns athletes on the effects that caffeine can have on their performance.
“Everything that goes up must come down,” Welch says. “For example, you have a basketball game going on, and a kid takes their pre-workout and they’re jacked up. They go in at halftime, and it’s tight in the 4th quarter or the last half of the basketball game. Then they start to crash and burn. So now you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, I need you. What happened?’ So I don’t buy into the stimulant thing too much.”
Welch’s Lifelong Passion for Learning and Coaching
Welch’s advice for other strength coaches is simple: never stop learning. Whether attending clinics, networking with other coaches, or reading the latest research, Welch remains committed to staying up-to-date in the field. He encourages coaches to take the role of student and embrace change.
“I wish I could have told myself to embrace being a student a lot earlier in life. Because I mean this is awesome. That’s the number one thing I definitely would have told myself was, ‘Hey, you need to get into this in high school. It is that important. It is that great. It is that wonderful.’ If I can go back in time and say that to myself, that is one thing I definitely would do.“
Coach Marvin Welch’s journey from the field to the weight room exemplifies his endless pursuit of sport performance knowledge. By blending scientific training principles with practical coaching strategies, he has left an undeniable impact on the athletes he serves at Dickinson ISD. His emphasis on specialized training programs, efficiency, and recovery reflects his dedication not just to enhancing performance, but to fostering long-term behaviors in his athletes. As he continues to mentor future coaches and refine his methods, Welch’s actions serve as a reminder that the role of a strength coach goes beyond building stronger athletes—it’s about shaping individuals to excel beyond the field.
