As a Division One school, most of Rocklin’s sports programs are very competitive. This comes from weeks of practice and commitment, as well as natural talent. But for a lot of schools, trying to trounce the competition becomes more than just working hard, it also means working smart, which is why a lot of Spring sports have been starting before the Winter season has ended.

Some of these sports include tennis, swim and track. But each of them runs into their own problems. The trouble is, to keep leagues fair, these sports are actually not allowed to practice with their high school coaches until the season starts. This means one thing for the athletes: Conditioning.

Swimmers can’t get in the pool with their coach, so the past two weeks they have been running, doing push ups and partaking in plenty of other activities meant to strengthen their bodies, lungs and hearts. Freshman Andrew Rutschmann says, “I’ve been getting out of shape and I’m excited to start varsity swim,” a mentality probably shared not just by the swimmers, but also by other individuals involved in spring sports.

Tennis has taken the opposite approach, visiting the courts and playing/conditioning yet without their coach in sight. Another problem crops up here, though. A multitude of players have been skipping out of practice, knowing that there is no coach to discipline them for doing so. After conditioning, some of the players will practice actual tennis on the courts, using their own rackets and tennis balls.

So with this in mind, some sports have had an interesting “Hell Week”. For the readers who don’t know, Hell Week is the first week of practice in a new sports season. Since everyone is out of shape, the coaches want to whip everyone into prime condition as fast as possible; that means tons of cardio and infrequent breaks.

Since sports can’t actually be played with coaches yet, every sport had to start their season doing conditioning this year if they wanted to start early. This means almost every sport had a “Hell Week” though some were harsher than others.

“Hell Week was not as hard as I had thought it would be, but I can’t wait to get in the pool,” said Andrew.

Hell Week having been over with now, spring sports seasons will officially start next week. Hopefully our hard work and the extra time we snuck in will pay off, and Rocklin High School will excel the way they usually do.