Strength and conditioning. Those are words student-athletes often dread because of the early morning workouts and the endurance it requires. But, to become an optimal Division I athlete, it’s a must. Brian Whiting enters his sixth season as the West Virginia University women’s basketball team’s strength coach. For Whiting, he wants to see incremental daily improvement.

 

“Day-to-day my job is to schedule and organize programs and create workouts for the girls in the weight room and depending on the season, our conditioning workouts,” Whiting said. “All of my workouts I create on the court, in the weight room or out on the field are designed to get them to become better basketball players and to improve their performance on the floor and also help reduce the chance of injuries.”

 

Whiting, a native of Plymouth, Michigan, knows first-hand how injuries can impact a student-athlete. His own injuries in high school motivated him to dream of one day working in the exercise science field.

 

“I wanted to help other athletes not have to go through something I had to go through, which is an injury,” Whiting noted. “I realized that physical therapy was a little slow for me. I wanted to be with athletes at a high level, so I shifted over to strength and conditioning.”

 

He volunteered while in college at Michigan State and eventually earned a graduate assistantship with the Spartans’ strength and conditioning staff.

 

“The relationships and mentors I had at Michigan State really taught me the nuts and bolts of the profession,” Whiting said. “They also taught me how important it is to build relationships with your athletes and also the people you work with to get the job done the best way possible.”

 

Since his arrival at WVU in 2010, Whiting has helped the Mountaineers train hard and excel on the basketball court. Part of Whiting’s job is helping the Mountaineers get into shape and be ready for the “Physical for 40” style that coach Mike Carey demands of his teams.

 

“Coach Carey is someone who is very big on the weight room,” Whiting said. “He values it in his program. You see it all over our practice facility – Physical for 40. A lot of that physical part of our gameplay comes from the weight room. If you’re not strong, you better have an attitude that you’re going to go out on the court and play physical. Having that added component of being a physically strong basketball player, not just a physically strong person, but a physically strong basketball player makes you that much better on the court.”

 

“One thing I really love about working for coach Carey is that he really lets me do my job. He wants them stronger and in better condition and he’ll evaluate the results on the floor. If for some reason they are not up to par, he’ll let me know about it and I can make some adjustments.”

 

The old cliché of working hard in the weight room pays off is certainly true. A demanding workout can be tiresome for new student-athletes entering the program, but it’s very important for the Mountaineers to be in shape once the season opens in November.

 

“If you talk to a freshman or some of our current girls about their freshman year, they will admit the whole part of becoming a Division I basketball player at West Virginia is very hard,” Whiting said. “The weight room and our conditioning workouts are a huge part of that. It’s just way different than anything at the high school level. We work really hard and I hold them accountable in the weight room for everything they do.”

 

Strength and power are some of WVU’s biggest focuses in the weight room.

 

“Basketball is a contact sport. You’re going to get hit a little bit,” Whiting said. “The student-athletes need to be physically strong and powerful. They are jumping all the time, battling for rebounds, battling for loose balls and trying to gain position in the post. Basketball is a cutting sport. You’re constantly changing direction, going from side to side, backpedaling from a sprint to a shuffle. I try to apply all those movements in a conditioning and agility session to help prepare them the best way for basketball.”

 

The ‘Mountaineer Family’ culture at West Virginia has made Whiting feel at home during the past six years.

 

“I have enjoyed every minute of being here at West Virginia,” he said. “The basketball staff is a great staff and it starts at the top with coach Carey.”

 

Whiting calls now this time the best of his life, as he and his wife Elise welcomed a daughter, Shay, in May.

 

“It’s been the greatest experience of my life. The most rewarding job is being a father. It makes the most stressful day so much better when I get to pick her up and take her home.”

 

And for Whiting, he’s a key contributor to the Mountaineers’ “Physical for 40” mantra.