Deerick Smith is the epitome of the high school strength coach. As Director of Strength and Conditioning for Southside School District 3 in Batesville, Ark., he is a one-man show. As his district’s only strength coach – running three weight rooms for six primary teams – he’s a master at juggling complex programming and scheduling needs for student-athletes and their sport coaches.
“I work with all sports, but only six have lifting periods,” he says. “Now, our athletes from those six teams may play some of our smaller sports without dedicated lifting periods, so I’m not able to be with them every single day. I’m basically working with each sport two times per week, then handing athletes off to their sport coaches for another session during the same week.”
The realities and complexities can mount up fast, with expectations for every team and every athlete remaining extremely high. As a result, staying organized, efficient and productive plays an outsized role in the district’s overall athletic success.
To address these issues, Smith tried a variety of software platforms to help him stay on top of it all, but the vast majority of organizational tools available to him focused primarily on the individual athlete or small groups of athletes, rather than multiple teams within organizations.
Then he found TeamBuildr.
“Just speaking with them at the various clinics was so informative,” says Smith. “They were so hands-on, showing me exactly how everything works. The user interface is so intuitive and I never run into any glitches. I don’t have to update it every few weeks. It’s really just be a great system.”
TeamBuildr is online strength and conditioning software for real-world strength and conditioning coaches. With clients ranging in size from Southside School District 3 to as large as the Texas Rangers, The Ohio State Buckeyes, the New Orleans Saints and the Oregon Ducks – to name just a few – TeamBuildr’s culture focuses first on serving the best interests of coaches and athletes.
Whether you’re building your own programming, looking to create custom reports, or providing athletes with a tool to keep them accountable, TeamBuildr has built it out. It’s mobile friendly, comes with 50+ program templates ranging from sport-specific to Conjugate & Triphasic, tracks maxes, outputs more than 15 standard reports, integrates with rack-mounted tablets, delivers evaluation and testing tools, connects with your weight room’s TV to display timers, leaderboards and whole lot more.
But again, it’s not really about the features.
It’s about efficiency.
“What used to take eight hours of training block is now down to one,” says Smith. “Even with the complexities of our schedule, it allows me to program sessions and push them to their sport coaches. I’m virtually running those sessions that the sport coach is managing.”
It’s about engagement.
“In terms of driving performance and intent in our lifts or dynamic movements – or even in conditioning – it’s been awesome,” says Smith. “It helps bridge the gap and get your fringe athletes more bought-in. They’re used to apps. They’ve had smartphones most of their lives and they’ve been app-driven since they started school. They understand they can look at it and it will explain what they need to know using a tool they’re familiar with, just as in school and life in general.”
It’s about accountability.
“It helps athletes take ownership,” says Smith. “Maybe I have an athlete that needs to back off a bit. I can build an exercise menu in TeamBuildr. For example, maybe I have a hand-supported back squat for our main strength movement, but this athlete’s back may be off. I can build in substitutions, so if that athlete is just feeling crushed today – we can pick a different option. It allows them to take ownership of their training and – in a sense – design training around their daily needs.”
In the end, TeamBuildr is about its customers, first and foremost. The company has no investors or outside interests influencing its vision. So the folks inside the walls at TeamBuildr spend all their time making life better for the people who matter most.
“To me, what really sets them apart, their customer service is second-to-none, and I’m not just saying that,” says Smith. “When I have questions, they answer them. If I have issues, I call them. I don’t talk to 13 different operators. I can even call Hewitt, who’s a co-owner of TeamBuildr, and he’ll actually help. There are very few places with a customer-service focus this elite.”
Real innovation doesn’t come from playing tricks with software code or turning the customer into the product. Innovation rarely found in the latest operating system upgrade or new hardware rollout. In the world of strength and conditioning, real innovation has always been about the total package. It’s not about separating oneself from the pack. Instead, real innovation has always been about building bridges that connect people in ways that reveal new opportunities for growth and development, both personally and professionally.
And that’s what TeamBuildr is all about.
Details
Whether you are programming phys ed, weights classes, or sport-specific workouts, students and athletes can input workout data via their mobile devices or by using our weight room view tablet feature. This feature allows 4-8 athletes to receive their individualized workouts, including prescribed loads and intensities, using tablets in the weight room. Our reporting features help coaches view student progress over time, identify strengths and weaknesses, and visualize the effectiveness of the strength and conditioning program.
