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Drexel University

Strength and Conditioning

The primary objective of the Drexel Strength and Conditioning Program is to help each athlete achieve their maximal level of performance while reducing the occurrence of injuries. Training programs are designed to increase an athlete's strength, power, speed, agility, conditioning and flexibility.

Each athlete is also taught about proper nutrition and recovery techniques, while Coach Rankin oversees an annual periodization plan and a wide range of exercises to challenge the athlete in each workout.

Prior to implementing TeamBuildr, Rankin ran a traditional high-performing department based on Excel. Between he and his staff, training programs were printed off into workout cards for on-campus training and workout packets were produced in bulk for off-season training. By many standards, the Drexel strength and conditioning department was running a collegiate training program on par with most competitive Division 1 schools.

However, in 2013 Coach Rankin decided to not settle for “on par” but wanted to innovate the current processes he employed. Here are the objectives Mike sought to accomplish:

  • Capture time and labor efficiency for our coaches by switching away from Excel.
  • Create a paperless environment for our coaches and athletes, both on and off campus.
  • Streamline the process of capturing data on and off campus to bolster analytics & sports science applications.
  • Provide a digital platform for our Millennial athletes that promoted accessibility, accountability, transparency, and ease-of-use.
  • Implement and run the previous four objectives in a cost-effective manner that did not put an undue financial burden on our budget or the athletic program.

Coach Rankin began his search for a strength and conditioning platform that would ideally accomplish all the objectives laid out above. After evaluating the various options on the market through an internal search process, Rankin selected TeamBuildr as the platform of choice for Drexel Strength, citing:

The TeamBuildr software was clear choice for us in many ways – even making the selection process much easier than anticipated.

First, their platform offered every piece of functionality we were looking for in a D1 program at a fraction of the cost of the other options; it was an incredibly easy sell to administration in terms of cost +/- value.

Additionally, the guys behind TeamBuildr gave me peace of mind. The quality of technical support & willingness to develop new updates based on feedback is unmatched in my opinion."

After TeamBuildr: In Pursuit of Innovation and Efficiency

Rankin implemented TeamBuildr with all 4 coaches and all 18 varsity sports; strength coaches began programming workouts directly in TeamBuildr and distributing workouts to athletes in one of three ways:

  1. Via printable workout cards
  2. Via the TeamBuildr smartphone app
  3. Via Weight Room View (a tablet module built for the weight room).

The strength staff started collecting data ranging from load, reps, and times to qualitative data including body weight and athlete survey responses delivered directly through the smartphone app.

The strength program had severely cut out mass amounts of paper usage and provided each athlete with digital experience both in and out of the weight room. Additionally, workout programming was streamlined for coaches - delivering cost savings to the department while providing a cloud-based collaboration tool which allowed coaches to access their work from anywhere on an app or computer.

Reporting

Drexel runs 6-8 reports weekly out of the TeamBuildr platform (which are exported to PDF and Excel). The reports include anything as simple as a “Workout Results” report to a “Rep Count” and “Volume Load” report. With the vast amount of data collected, Drexel values the ability to view reports in a digestible manner (such as visual graphs).

Affordability

Drexel pays $1,000 per year for the Platinum plan in TeamBuildr which provides the program with room for up to 500 student-athletes, unlimited coach accounts, 12 exportable reports, and Weight Room View - a tablet module for the weight room.

Return-on-Investment

Between the time-savings, paper cost-reduction, and process streamlining, Drexel Strength quantitatively saw a Return-on-Investment (ROI) from the TeamBuildr implementation within a year.

Additionally, the program realizes a gain in quality and experience among coaches and student-athletes in terms of digital environment and social tools (Team Feed, Leaderboard, and other team features).

Streamlining a Weight Room: Utilizing Weight Room View

Upgrading the weight room to TeamBuildr’s Weight Room View was also part of Coach Rankin’s strategy to improve operations and data-collection efforts. With this module, athletes retrieve individualized workout from a tablet in the weight room and then enter workout results back in. This essentially records real-time data in the weight room for analytics while also eliminating the need for paper and data-transcription into Excel.

Running our strength program on the TeamBuildr software doesn’t put us on par with other Division 1 schools; we are innovating beyond the current standards of our competition.
 - Mike Rankin, Director of S&C