This year’s weight conditioning class for football players appears to be going mostly back to normal. The players can finally start working out in the weight room after having to work out outside last year.

JV running back Rocco Bastianelli said, “Without it I wouldn’t be able to work out everyday so being able to work out somewhere everyday just helps out a ton,”.

To Varsity Head Coach Adam Reinking, the weight conditioning class is not only required but is necessary for the players strength training, conditioning, and preparing for games. Reinking believes strongly that every football program should have this class.

“Having the class is the most important thing for a football program,” Reinking said, “It’s kind of a non-negotiable, you need to have a football class. It helps with so many aspects, the training, checking on their grades, taking care of film sessions.”

This year’s class is going much better compared to last year. At the beginning of the year, the players were working out over Zoom with whatever they could use at home. Once the hybrid schedule started, they had to work outside with the number of players showing up to school being inconsistent. 

 “Last year with COVID it wasn’t the best and this year it’s really effective and beneficial. It helps us prepare for games pretty well,” Bass said.

Another issue that the class had last year was very little time to prepare for this season. During the offseason, the team only had about 2-3 weeks of downtime to prepare for this season.

Both JV and Varsity players are in this class, and while it did cause issues early on, the players started working a lot better together as the year went on.

“In the beginning it was a little bit hard because not everyone was putting in full effort and then we fixed that and everyone in there is doing the best they can so it’s been fine,” Bass said.

Once these issues were resolved, the teams actually started to benefit from each other.

“The teams work great together, always helping each other out,” Bastianelli said.

The size of the class hasn’t caused any issues due to the weight room being designed to hold a large number of students.

Reinking also believes that the team’s strength and performance will start to improve as the year goes on now that things are starting to become more consistent.

“This spring will be a true test of how hard our guys work and how good our strength and conditioning program is.” Reinking said.