Summer workouts benefit AHS athletes

John Wild-Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau Gary Pegues

This past year, Auburn High School has reached the playoffs in every sport offered and earned its second consecutive state title in baseball and first in girls golf. Coincidentally, most of those teams have been through a weight training program under the director of teacher and coach Gary Pegues.

With summer vacation in full swing, the Auburn football team, which is coming off its second consecutive perfect regular season, started lifting weights on Monday. Practice will start in early August.

Pegues was a defensive back at LSU in the early 1990s where he earned a kinesiology degree and minored in health science. He came to AHS in '95 where his father-in-law, Bill McCall, was the head football coach. Pegues had a one-season stint on the LSU graduate assistant staff in 1999 under Gerry DiNardo before returning to Auburn High.

He now teaches the weight training class as Auburn High and assists head coach Tim Carter on the varsity football team.

Throughout the summer, the football players will be meeting three times a week at 6 a.m. to lift and train. Pegues said all but a handful of the 115 players showed up on the first day.

"The kids really seem to enjoy it," Pegues said. "They've bought into the idea that if you train the right way before the season, you will see a different in your performance."

Pegues added that most, if not all, other high school football programs across the state lift weights during the summer. But he and the other AHS coaches try to inspire their players by telling them that they are training better than any of them.

"Whether or not that's true, we don't know," Pegues said. "But different coaches ask for different things from their guys. Here, we make sure that we're training smarter, not harder. It's not about the number of reps or amount of weight. It's about doing the right things for that kid to make him the best athlete that he can be."

Pegues said the program he organizes for the AHS football team is a combination of bits and pieces from other trainers' philosophies at all levels. And with the advancements in exercise science, he regularly adds or takes away certain elements.

"I'm always coming across new information that can make our program better," Pegues said. "Years ago, it was all about how much you did and how long you were in the gym for. You would be in there for four hours and think you did some serious work. But today you can get a higher quality workout in half that time if you do it properly. Just being more educated about what we're doing has also cut out a ton of injuries."

With Auburn University a stone's throw away from Auburn High, Pegues has gotten close with AU head strength and conditioning coach Kevin Yoxall. Yoxall has provided Pegues with advice on how to make his summer workouts more beneficial.

"I'm very lucky to have Coach Yoxall close by," Pegues said. "He's one of the best in the business. He'll let me come in and watch the Auburn guys workout and see what they're doing. I'll show him my program to look over, and he'll break it down to make it better. Like he'll say, ‘You should be doing this on Tuesdays, not Mondays.' He's just full of information and has been a great help."

With Auburn High's football players ranging from a 6-foot-6 defensive end to small and shifty running backs, Pegues stresses to players that lifting weights is not a competition.

"Our philosophy is that it's not what we do, it's how we do it," Pegues said. "A coach can brag about how many kids he has squatting over 500 pounds, but that doesn't matter if that strength doesn't show up on the field. We don't want our kids to get wrapped up in the numbers. Our goal is for them to improve in a way that's right for them."

With speed being such a crucial aspect of football, Auburn High invested in the SpeedTracs program, a recent advancement in improving an athlete's agility and quickness.

SpeedTracs is used by athletes of all sports ranging from high schoolers to professionals. It is a structured, pro-level speed and agility development program controlled by the coaches. The curriculum works athletes through a progression of drills from preconditioning to four levels of training that improve performance and reduces risk of injury.

"When I saw that the pro athletes are using this program and its equipment, I had to get the school on board," Pegues said. "We got one in March and it has been a great investment. Other schools in the area are interested in it, too, because of the great benefits. Just a little extra speed makes a huge difference in all sports, not just football. It has really helped transform the way we train our athletes in the area of speed, explosion and agility."

As well as educating high school athletes about the proper way to exercise, Pegues said informing them about nutrition is also vital.

"Over the summer we've only got them for about two hours each day we see them," Pegues said. "It's not like in college where you can keep tabs on what they're doing and what they're eating. They've got to know how to make good decisions on their own."

For starters, Pegues said when a football players is advised to lose weight, small steps are key.

"If they're going to get fast food, which they probably will, we'll start out by saying, ‘Make that Coke a Diet Coke,'" Pegues said. "Then we'll ask them to cut out the fries. Then make that Diet Coke a water."

Keeping the families informed is also important since they are usually the ones doing the cooking at home, Pegues said.

When it comes to the workouts, Pegues explained that the confidence that comes from seeing physical results makes a huge difference.

"You'll see a kid, even the little guys, stick out their chest a little more," he said. "Their confidence goes through the roof. They know that what they do in the weight room is helping them get bigger, faster and stronger. And in the fall when it's time to compete, knowing that they worked their butts off all summer will make a difference."