Brady Nyland is the strength and conditioning coach at Speedway High School in Indianapolis. Coach Nyland shares his training philosophy, how he uniquely uses the whiteboard in his facility to celebrate his athletes’ success, and trends that are changing high school athlete strength training.
What are the core values of your training philosophy?
My top core value is to do everything I can to develop the best person, student, and athlete, in that order. Training goes way beyond the weight room, and what we do will make a difference in these kids’ lives. When we deal with our training philosophy, my number one goal in the program is to best prepare our student-athletes for the sport they love to play. Everything we do needs to transfer over to the sport they are passionate about—otherwise why do it?Â
What do you do in your training program that makes it unique?
Something that makes us unique is our whiteboard. Everyone most likely has a whiteboard in their weight room, but I like to add to the conventional exercises/rep schemes. I write on the whiteboard the schedule of all the games throughout the week to promote all of them. This helps create excitement for the games that week, and our athletes know that I truly care about their games. When they win, we celebrate it! Every win is a clap the next day in class, so they know that their win will be acknowledged no matter what. Those wins add up and eventually lead to championships. Those are up there, too. It’s just a little something extra to get that buy-in from our kids.
Your strength-training program has been named to the NHSSCA Program of Excellence. What does it mean to receive this prestigious honor for you personally, and what does it say about your staff and student-athletes at Speedway Schools?
By being recognized as a NHSSCA Program of excellence, it truly validates what our student-athletes at are doing day in and day out. They have bought into the culture that we have built from day one, and it gives our athletes the edge we need to win. For me personally, it is something that I can brag about, but not about my individual hard work—it will always be about our student-athletes.
Which strength coaches have impacted you the most, and in what way have they impacted you?
I went to Avon High School in Avon, Indiana from 2011-2015. My high school strength coach was Dave Ballou, who is now at the University of Alabama. He set the tone of what high school strength and conditioning should look like, and I am grateful to have been able to be a part of his program.
What trends do you see impacting the profession in the future?
The biggest trend I’m seeing now is the fact that schools are realizing the importance of having a strength and conditioning professional in the weight room year round. It is a great thing for our profession, and the need for coaches is growing every year. I definitely see Velocity Based Training becoming a bigger part in high school strength and conditioning, as it has become more attainable and cost effective to use.
What do you hope for a student-athlete to learn while in your program?
I hope that every student-athlete who comes though my program at Speedway knows that we truly care for them. I always say, “Don’t lose touch and the doors are truly always open,” because they are. I want them to learn that working hard for something may be hard and difficult in the present time, but it is totally worth it in the long run. Hopefully when they leave my program, they are strong, confident people who apply the healthy habits they formed in the weight room during the rest of their lives.
