Don’t Start With Sets and Reps

“What rep scheme should we use?”

“Should we Olympic lift?”

“How many days should we train?”

“Should we use velocity-based training?”

Those are legitimate questions.

They just aren't the first questions.

If you are an athletic director or director of coaching trying to build an athletic development program, start somewhere else.

Start with the system.

Decide What You Believe

Before selecting exercises, define what you are trying to accomplish.

This sounds philosophical.

It is actually very practical.

If ten coaches are working with your athletes and all ten have different definitions of athletic development, you don't have a program.

You have ten programs.

That creates confusion.

One coach wants bodybuilding.

Another wants Olympic lifting.

Another wants CrossFit.

Another believes playing the sport is enough.

Another wants every workout to look like something seen on Instagram that morning.

Athletes shouldn't have to change training philosophies every season.

An organization needs principles.

What do we believe about speed?

What do we believe about strength?

What do we believe about movement?

What do we believe about recovery?

What do we believe about conditioning?

What do we believe about youth development?

Answer those questions before arguing about exercises.

Build the Floor Before the Ceiling

Every program needs a minimum standard.

I think about this as the floor.

What should every athlete in the organization receive?

Maybe that means regular exposure to sprinting.

Consistent strength training.

Movement preparation.

Jumping and landing.

Basic recovery education.

Assessment.

Progress tracking.

The exact model can change.

The important thing is establishing a baseline.

Without a floor, athletic development becomes dependent on which coach an athlete happens to get.

One team receives excellent training.

Another receives random workouts.

Another does nothing.

That isn't a system.

A good athletic department should be able to say, “This is what being an athlete here includes.”

Keep the Program Simple Enough to Coach

Complex programs look impressive in spreadsheets.

Simple programs often look better on athletes.

This doesn't mean programming should be simplistic.

There is a difference.

The coach can understand periodization, force-velocity relationships, energy systems and motor learning while still giving the athlete a clear workout.

Athletes don't need to experience our knowledge.

They need to benefit from it.

There is a reason experienced coaches continue returning to basic movements and progressions. Boyle’s program-design writing makes this point explicitly: exercise selection and program design are often made more complicated than necessary, while good choices should be purposeful and tied to what the athlete actually needs.

The sophistication should live inside the system.

The athlete should experience clarity.

Development Requires Progression

One of the biggest problems in youth performance training is that everyone gets the same workout.

A seventh grader enters.

A senior enters.

Same exercise.

Same bar.

Same expectations.

That makes no sense.

Training age matters.

A novice athlete needs to learn.

An experienced athlete needs to progress.

The younger athlete might be learning how to decelerate, squat, hinge and perform a basic push-up.

The advanced athlete may be working on higher sprint outputs, more complex power exercises and heavier strength work.

Same philosophy.

Different level.

This is how good sport development already works.

Nobody gives an advanced baseball player the same hitting progression as a beginner.

The performance program shouldn't either.

Give Coaches Progressions and Regressions

A program isn't a sheet of exercises.

It is a decision-making system.

If an athlete cannot perform Exercise A, what happens?

Too often the answer is, “Do your best.”

That isn't coaching.

Every major movement should have a regression.

It should have a progression.

It should probably have a lateral option.

An athlete can't perform a traditional split squat well.

Fine.

Where do we go?

An athlete has shoulder discomfort during a press.

What is the approved alternative?

An athlete masters the movement.

What earns the next progression?

Now the coach isn't inventing the program every afternoon.

The system helps make the decision.

This is especially valuable when an organization has multiple coaches with different experience levels.

Assess to Make Decisions

Testing athletes is useful when the information changes something.

Collecting numbers because numbers look professional is not useful.

Ask why you are testing.

A sprint time can tell us whether an athlete is getting faster.

A jump can help us monitor power.

Strength metrics can show progression.

Movement assessments can identify obvious restrictions or patterns needing attention.

Body composition may have value in the appropriate setting.

The test needs a purpose.

Then retest.

Otherwise we aren't assessing.

We're collecting.

The goal is not the dashboard.

The goal is the decision.

Solve the Staffing Problem

This is where athletic directors need to be realistic.

Many schools do not have a full-time strength and conditioning coach.

Some probably will not get one anytime soon.

That doesn't mean athletes should receive no development system.

It means the system has to match the staffing reality.

Maybe a qualified coach oversees programming centrally.

Sport coaches help execute portions.

Maybe certain teams train together.

Maybe technology assists with program delivery.

Maybe outside performance professionals support the program.

Maybe satellite facilities improve access.

There are multiple models.

But pretending one sport coach can independently become an expert in speed, strength, conditioning, rehabilitation, nutrition and sports science is not a model.

It is wishful thinking.

Give coaches a system they can execute.

Give them guardrails.

Give them education.

Give them someone to call when they don't know.

That is much more scalable.

Integration Beats Addition

Here is another common mistake.

Schools create an athletic development program and simply add it on top of everything else.

Practice is still two and a half hours.

Now add lifting.

Add speed.

Add conditioning.

Add recovery.

Eventually the athlete has a part-time job.

We need integration.

If the athlete sprints during performance training, maybe the sport coach doesn't need additional speed conditioning that afternoon.

If the athlete completes high-intensity lower-body work, practice planning should acknowledge it.

If competition volume increases, training volume may need to decrease.

Performance and sport practice should talk to each other.

The athlete has one body.

Our organizational chart does not change that.

Measure the Program, Not Just the Athletes

This is the piece athletic departments often miss.

We test athletes.

We rarely test the system.

Ask different questions.

How many athletes are consistently participating?

How many quality training exposures are athletes receiving?

Are sprint times improving?

Are jumps improving?

Are athletes getting stronger?

Are preventable training injuries occurring?

Are coaches following the system?

Where are scheduling bottlenecks?

Which teams lack access?

How much time do athletes spend waiting?

Those are performance-program metrics.

If the system isn't producing the behavior we want, changing an exercise probably isn't the answer.

Culture Follows Systems

People love talking about culture because culture sounds important.

It is important.

But culture isn't built with a banner.

It is built through repeated behavior.

Athletes arrive early because that is what athletes here do.

They prepare before practice because that is what athletes here do.

They train year-round because that is normal.

They record their numbers.

They chase personal bests.

They put equipment away.

Older athletes teach younger athletes.

Coaches reinforce the same language.

Now you have a culture.

The system created repeated behavior.

Repeated behavior became expectation.

Expectation became identity.

Build Something Athletes Can Grow Up In

The best performance program isn't the workout your varsity football team completes this fall.

It is the development pathway a sixth grader can enter and progress through until graduation.

Think about that athlete.

Age 11.

Age 13.

Age 15.

Age 18.

What should that athlete know?

How should that athlete move?

How should strength develop?

How should speed develop?

What habits should become automatic?

That is a performance program.

Not Monday's workout.

A system.

And if we build that system well, eventually the results start showing up everywhere.

Athletes move better.

They become stronger.

They become faster.

Coaches spend less time reinventing the wheel.

Parents understand the process.

Younger athletes see a pathway.

And the school stops treating strength and conditioning as something athletes occasionally do in a room.

It becomes part of how the organization develops athletes.

That is the standard we should be chasing.