Multitasking is hard, but it's all in a day's work for Matt Chatham who is the strength and conditioning coach for 19 varsity teams at Skidmore College. Chatham works with teams year-round to help get athletes fit and ready for competition, and keep teams healthy in-season. 

Strength and conditioning can be intimidating for incoming freshmen, plenty of whom have nerves about whether they think they are fit enough coming into their first season. Here are Matt Chatham's do's and don'ts for incoming freshman:

2aDays: What is your favorite thing about being a strength and conditioning coach?

MC: Seeing the results when our student-athletes PR is a pretty good feeling. Having people do something that they've never done before, so for example, someone doing a chin up for the first time is exciting. Or being able to hit a back squat weight that they've never done before is my favorite part.

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2aDays: For incoming recruits, what are some of your best tips for incoming freshmen entering their first preseason?

MC: As far as a performance perspective, I would say the biggest thing is to get your sleep down, get your hydration down, and get some type of nutrition. Just figure it out so that, when you get here, it's not a bunch of million different new things going on. You will be sleeping in a new place, you'll be eating different food, it will be a little bit more difficult to prepare your own food. Or if you're eating in the dining hall, figure out what kind of food is there. It can get pretty overwhelming when you walk through there because you have all these options. 

Also, I think something that gets under-valued is the amount of walking around that you do. It's a lot different than you know, coming from high school. Here you're going from class to sports, back to your dorm, and you're walking around with friends around campus. That ends up burning up a lot of water that's in your body. So staying hydrated is super important. So sleep, nutrition, and hydration are probably my three biggest tips for anybody coming in.

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2aDays: What are some common mistakes that you've seen freshmen struggle with, that they can maybe prepare for ahead of time?

MC: I think one thing is not doing enough coming in, or doing too much, or even doing too much of the wrong thing. So what I mean by that is, depending on which sport they play, doing sports specific conditioning is important. For example, if you are a baseball or softball player, the last thing you want to be doing is going for 5k runs; you don't need to be training that type of system. Instead, doing some types of interval sprints would be something that's better suited. 

And then, you know, kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum [in] a sport like soccer. Running to build volume is good. So, running distance, a couple of days, you know, maybe twice a week. But you have to remember that soccer is also a lot of stop and go, cutting, and changing directions. So I think a big fault that we see is a lot of conditioning and when an athlete only goes for runs. They think they got a good sweat and good workout. They think they're ready. But then they come here and they get on the field, cutting back and forth and they're like, “Wow, I'm a lot more tired than I think I should be.” So I would say the conditioning is probably the biggest thing.

2aDays: What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you have found about what people think about being a student-athlete?

MC: I think people underestimate the amount of work that it really is. It's a big time commitment. And obviously, it's a lot of effort as well. We have, on top of just the practice time alone, you also have team lifts, team meetings, and individual meetings with your coach. So it ends up being a lot of energy that you spend with the team. You don't really know until you're here.

Related: Freshman Year Student-Athletes Preseason Expectations

2aDays: Can you think of any mistakes that incoming freshmen could make if they went into the weight room without having any training?

MC: Yeah, often I see people doing the things that they like to do. So in general, when people go to work out, freshmen and people in general, they like to strengthen their strengths, because they like to work on things that they're comfortable with. But in reality, you get a lot better by working on your weaknesses. So you know, a big part of that is being able to self diagnose what you're not great at. Then from there, figuring out a plan of which exercises are going to help me the most? So that way, you're ready for the season to start.

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2aDays: As a final question, if you could give a nervous incoming freshman, one piece of advice about how to come in fit for and ready for their season, what would it be?

MC: I think getting comfortable with the movements. You don't need to be the fittest when you come in. Once you come in, we're going to work with everybody, but it makes it a lot easier if you actually just go to a weight room or you go to a gym ahead of time, and you just start getting comfortable with some of the movements. So even starting with just a bodyweight plank, or learning how to do a pushup the right way. It doesn't have to be super intimidating. We're not doing heavy cleans right off the bat or we're not maxing right away. But understanding how your body should move, and from there, nutrition and the hydration plays a huge role and will make you feel good when you actually get out onto the field to move.
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Image Credit: Skidmore

* Originally published on March 20, 2023, by Bella Nevin