Meet the Coach: Emily Plucker
- High School Strength Coach at Canton High School (South Dakota)
- CF Level 1
- Working towards CSCS
- PLT4M Coaches Club Ambassador
Emily Plucker is all about communication. We spotlight three ways Emily communicates with her athletes.
If you want to hear more about how Emily communicates with athletes, coaches, and parents go check out our full interview.
A Coach's Communication
In her second year at Canton High School, Emily Plucker considers herself pretty lucky. She has over 175 athletes consistently showing up to the weight room. She has coaches that are trusting of the strength program itself. And lastly, she has parents bought in and supportive of their kids going to work out.
For Coach Plucker, communication has been the foundation of growing the strength program at Canton. While a lot of her communication is intended for her students, it ripples out to coaches and parents that want to know what is going on in the weight room.
Coach Plucker knows there is no silver bullet when it comes to communication. Instead, she blends a healthy balance of face-to-face interaction, a strength and conditioning app, and social media.
Face-to-Face:
One of Emily’s biggest goals is to make herself accessible. She makes it a priority to get to know all of her new students and athletes. To get the athletes to work hard, they need to know who they are working out with.
“When they come in, I am constantly walking around. Engaging in conversation. Talking about their lifting. Asking how they are feeling.
One thing that helped was I am still in it myself. I am 42, I have to keep things in check, but I am still in it….I love to workout. ”
The S&C App:
With so many athletes, Coach Plucker useds PLT4M as a way to deliver workouts, but also send important messages.
Through weekly messages, Coach Plucker is able to set the stage for what is next, and does not have to loose valuable session time to do so.
“As a strength coach, I only have so much time with each athlete. Using PLT4M’s messaging system, I can send out updates, motivational posts, and coaching tips. I know that each and every athlete is receiving the message.”
Social Media:
Instagram became a place where Emily could share the hard work going on in the weight room. It was a way she could highlight her athletes and get others intrigued in the strength program.
“I started posting videos of a few guys that were doing things like some really awesome squat cleans….and they started to buy-in.
I even had a little 8th grader come in and say ‘You know Emily I am coming in here because I watch those videos on Instagram and I think it looks really fun. ”
