THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO SUMMER PROGRAMMING

Step-By-Step walkthrough on how to create & implement a

summer program that will help maximize your players athletic
potential heading into the fall semester.

Before you dive into this Ebook, I want to give you a little
background on who I am.

For the past 8 years I have worked as the Director of Sports

Performance in the collegiate setting designing & implementing
programs for 23 different sports. Prior to that I spent 3.5 years
working with the best tennis professionals this country has to
offer, two representing the USA in the olympics.

In my time at Adelphi I have worked with teams that have 53

conference championships, 10 NCAA regional championships & 3
national championships.

All of the training principles I will talk about in this book, APPLY
TO EVERY SINGLE ATHLETE I HAVE WORKED WITH.

Sports specificity is not a term we use here because training to

become a better athlete applies to every single sport you work
with.

Here are some of the qualities we will aim to improve with this
program:

- Speed (Acceleration, Peak Velocity)

1
 - Power (Vertical & Horizontal)
- Repeated Power (Vertical & Horizontal)
- Braking, Change of Direction, Agility
- Strength
- Repeated Sprint Ability

Of the qualities I just mentioned above, most, if not all will apply to
the athletes you are working with.

SPECIFICITY should come from the sport being played, not

through your sprint, jumps & lift program (unless you work with
Track & Field, who’s sport is the actual event itself).

The program you develop should help with general adaptations of

the qualities I mentioned, not specifically how to get better at that
sport.

Remember, programming & implementation are just one part of

the equation when it comes to progress.

It takes COMMITMENT, DEDICATION & HARD WORK from the

athlete to be able to maximize their genetic potential.

This book will give you the actionable steps you need to take for
you to design & implement a program that will help maximize that
potential.

I am forever grateful that you have purchased this course & I want
to be able to help you get the most of your athletes.

2
With that being said, let’s dive in & get started!

3
1. OUTLINING YOUR SUMMER (pg. 7)
- 1.1 Previous training
- 1.2 Full summer outline
- 1.3 Weekly outline
- 1.4 Adjustments

2. ASSESSMENTS (pg. 14)

- 2.1 Understanding Assessments
- 2.2 Speed
- 2.3 Power
- 2.4 Repeated Power
- 2.5 Braking / COD
- 2.6 Strength
- 2.7 Sprint Repeat

3. SPEED WORK (pg. 33)

- 3.1 Acceleration
- 3.2 Peak Velocity

4. JUMPS (pg. 46)

- 4.1 Progressions
- 4.2 Variations

5. LIFTING (pg. 59)

- 5.1 Training blocks
- 5.2 Exercise Variations

6. CONDITIONING (pg. 82)

- 6.1 Approach
- 6.2 Variations

4
7. TAKE HOME PROGRAMS (pg. 95)
- 7.1 How to design a take home program

8. THE MUNDANE (pg. 101)

- 8.1 The Mundane
- 8.2 Nutrition
- 8.3 Hydration
- 8.4 Sleeping

9. CLOSING THOUGHTS (pg. 111)

5
 SECTION 1

OUTLINING YOUR
SUMMER

6
1.1 PREVIOUS TRAINING

When building out your summer program, it is paramount to

understand what was done during the previous training cycle.

For us, most of our athletes are coming off of a strength block
from the spring semester. In this instance strength doesn't need
to be addressed until later on in the summer or when it is
identified as an area of need with a specific player.

For incoming freshmen the training scenario is quite different.

Most of the freshmen that we are working with have little workout
experience so they're going to have to start at a completely
different point than our returners.

For our returners, they will go through a needs analysis from our
assessments to determine where their training should begin in the
summer (I will dive into those assessments later)

Freshman, will also go through this training assessment but they

will start in a GPP block to build a base & to assess their
movement patterns. When you have athletes that are new to
training, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

It is extremely important to understand the previous training block

so you can continue to build on the work done during the
semester.

7
1.2 FULL SUMMER OUTLINE

Before we can jump into the programming aspect, we must first

understand how many weeks we are going to have to train in the
summer leading up to the fall semester.

Depending on the year, we will probably have anywhere from 10

to 12 weeks to prepare for our fall sports & 12 to 14 weeks to
prepare for our winter and spring sports.

It is paramount to outline this so you can figure out which qualities

are going to be addressed in the summer leading up to the
competitive season in the fall.

This is where I think a lot of coaches get it wrong. We are not

trying to peak for the first week of preseason; that is a ridiculous
concept that I see way too many coaches abide by.

We are trying to build a base to prepare us for the demands of our

upcoming season. That means that ATHLETIC DEVELOPMENT
should be at the forefront of your programming and
implementation rather than peaking for the beginning of
preseason.

After figuring out how many weeks you have to train you can then
start to look at the weekly breakdown of your summer program.

8
1.3 WEEKLY OUTLINE

This is where you need to understand the population that you are
working with.

Simply put, people with little training experience do not need as

many days of training.

I believe the bare minimum to get the desired results of improving

athleticism is 3 days of total body workouts. On the high end I
have done 5 days of workouts with high-level athletes and
experienced great results.

Remember, we are trying to find the ideal stimulus to create a

desirable change. By starting off with high frequency, you may
overload the athlete, have gains in the short-term but ruin their
long-term development.

I don't like the term minimal effective dose because I believe it

undermines the fact that you should be looking for the ideal dose
to stimulate change. BUT in this situation I would err on the low
side when training new athletes and slowly add 1 extra day with
more experienced athletes and continue to monitor progress.

For example if I am making progress working out 3 days a week

there is no need to add extra days until I hit a training plateau. In
my experience the only athletes that need more days of training
are those that train ALL YEAR LONG.

9
When it comes to figuring out your weekly schedule, I think it's
important to understand the population that you're working with.

I personally like to have work outs in the summer from Monday

through Thursday and try to get a minimum of three days of
workouts done in that time frame. We take off Friday's to give the
athletes a three-day weekend so they can enjoy their summer
while still doing a great job training throughout the week.

If necessary, they can take off one of the days and still be able to
get two to three good high-quality training days in, while having a
schedule that is conducive with their other summer plans.

We have athletes that compete in summer leagues and

sometimes training 3 days might not be realistic. In this situation
we would love our athletes to at least get two days of training in to
continue to work on things they need to improve on.

This is the outline we follow on that 4 DAY A WEEK PLAN:

DAY SPRINT LIFT

Day 1 Accel Total Body
Day 2 Max V Total Body
Day 3 Tempo / EDT / Circuit
Conditioning
Day 4 Accel Total Body

10
This outline gives us flexibility to move things around as
necessary based on attendance. If I had to eliminate any one of
these days it would be day 3 as this is the least important of all
the athletic qualities we are trying to address.

SPEED KILLS. This is PRIORITY ONE and often gets lost

amongst coaches. I will touch on adjustments in the next section
but I think it's important to understand that speed must be
developed before speed endurance.

Speed helps with the development of speed endurance; you will

not have speed endurance if you do not first have speed.

I believe this 4 day outline gives you a lot of flexibility to build

around. Always remember to try to stay away from 3 hard
sprinting days in a row.

This is why the Tempo work is crucial to break up the high CNS
effect from repeated sprint work.

11
1.4 ADJUSTMENTS

Just like any good coach should be able to do, you are going to
have to make adjustments throughout the course of the summer.
Things will come up for the athlete like vacations, competitions,
injuries Etc.

The great coaches are able to adjust the plan to fit the player; not
the other way around.

Below I will list two different outlines, that will cover 2 and 3 days
splits for athletes that have an extremely busy summer schedule.

Remember though, the most important thing you're trying to do is

develop better athletes. That means that the most important part
of our summer training is going to center around speed, power,
and strength development.

If there is a scenario where there are going to be days that we

have to take off due to practice and competition, tempo runs and
low CNS work will be the first things that we eliminate from our
program (athlete depending). Check out the 2 splits I highlighted
below:

2 DAY SPLIT

Day Sprint LIFT

1 Acceleration Total Body
2 Peak Velocity Total Body

12
 3 DAY SPLIT

Day Sprint LIFT

1 Acceleration Total Body
2 Peak Velocity Total Body
3 Tempo Runs EDT / Circuit

The iterations of these possibilities are endless. It is up to you as

the professional to play with different variations of your weekly
workouts to see what is optimal in the development of your
athletes.

Remember, we are trying to optimize performance and not crush

our athletes before heading into the beginning of the year.

As long as we are constantly assessing, we can't go wrong as a

professional.

13
 SECTION 2

ASSESSMENTS

14
2.1 ASSESSMENTS

Assessments need to be at the foundation of all programming.

There is no way to objectively assess whether your program is
improving the desired quality unless you have an objective
measure to evaluate it with.

You are going to need pre & post assessments to measure

whether or not your training has led to the desired change with
your summer program.

DO NOT SAVE ASSESSMENTS FOR THE BEGINNING & END

OF YOUR TRAINING PROGRAM.

This is a huge mistake I see coaches make. When you leave

testing to one day after multiple training blocks, you are not
getting a true indication of whether or not the program actually
worked.

Athletes will have bad days – more often than you may believe. If
it happens to be on your testing day, they will show little progress,
lose faith in the programming, & lose self esteem due to lack of
results. This is the last thing we want heading into the fall
competition season.

This is why I like to build testing into our weekly training sessions
so kids can get immediate feedback on how they are progressing.
These can be your simpler tests like peak velocity & vertical jump
since they are easy to perform in a group setting.

15
I leave more tests that are more taxing on the CNS until the
completion of the training block (roughly 3-4 weeks of training). I
do this for two main reasons:

1) To see if we achieved the desired result we were trying to

address with our training
2) To see what we need to do in our next training block to
improve our overall athleticism

At any point of the training year, assessments need to be at the

cornerstone of your programming. With more down time in the
summer, you can run these assessments a lot more frequently in
order to individualize programming for your athletes.

Now that we understand the importance of assessments, we can

start to dig into tests specifcally looking at the following athletic
abilities:

1) SPEED
2) POWER
3) REPEAT POWER
4) STRENGTH
5) BRAKING / COD (change of direction)
6) REPEATED SPRINT ABILITY

Below I will outline tests you can do when looking to measure

each one of these qualities.

16
2.2 SPEED

I put speed first, because this is the skill that dominates in every
sport.

SPEED KILLS & our best players are usually the fastest player,
regardless of the sport.

I am not going to entertain the semantics of “if the player doesn’t

have skill, what does speed matter?” because it isn’t our job as a
sports performance coach to evaluate skill. That is the sport
coach's job.

Our job is to improve the athletic ability of the players we work

with & speed development should be at the forefront.

When looking at speed there are two primary areas we want to

evaluate:

1) Acceleration: the start of a sprint, leading up to top speed

2) Peak Velocity: top speed

There are several different metrics as it relates to acceleration,

but here are the main two aspects we will look at:

1) Peak Force - first step; projection

2) Peak Power - top power reached – usually happens within
the first few steps.

17
Depending on the position athletes play, these two qualities may
be even bigger factors to their success than top speed.

However, join all three of these metrics together (force, power,

speed) & now you can look at the total speed profile of a player.

MEASUREMENT

The best way to measure speed is with one of the following:

1) Timing gates
2) Video system
3) Continuous laser

The laser is by far the most expensive option, so I will not get into
that because it will cost you thousands of dollars & you may not
be operating with that budget.

If you are on a budget then a video system like the MySprintApp

may be your best bet, because you only need enough money to
purchase the app & set up 6 sets of cones along with a video
system to record the sprint (Iphone or Ipad).

The app is research validated & will give you all the metrics you
need to be able to assess these qualities.

If you have the resources to get timing gates, get those as they
will improve with the accuracy of the assessment.

The two assessments for speed we will look at are:

18
 1) 30m Sprint - Acceleration
2) 20m Fly w/ 20m Run - Fly

For the 30m Sprint, it is pretty simple. You are going to have an
athlete perform 3 sprints (reduce chance of an inaccurate rep) &
get time at every 5m interval.

After you get the splits, input them into the JB Morin sprint
calculator spreadsheet & the profile will spit out everything you
need to know (included in the tools section).

I am not going to give you standards, because it depends on the

population you are working with & will differ between males &
females.

But understand this important fact:

IN TEAM SPORTS, ACCELERATION IS KING.

For the flying sprints you are going to need timing gates. I prefer
20m Run in w/ a 20m sprint zone, because it gives athletes a
comfortable zone to work up to top speed.

Most athletes will hit top speed in this zone, but if not, you can
always extend the sprint zone to be bigger.

After getting the fly time, I would convert it to MPH. You can use
the formula below to convert any timed rep of a given distance to
MPH:

19
MPH = (Distance sprinted in meters / time sprinted) * 2.237
MPH = (Distance sprinted in yards / time sprinted) * 2.045

Remember, all of these tests are done in meters; just make sure
you measure appropriately to get an accurate reading on your
results.

20
2.3 POWER

There are two planes of motion we will look at with regards to

power capabilities:

1) Vertical
2) Horizontal

Depending on the sport, I have seen them both to be correlated to

high athletic ability but which one you decide to run will depend on
your equipment availability.

If you are doing vertical testing, you can use one of the following:

1) Vertec
2) Jump Mat
3) Contact Grid
4) Force plates

Truth be told, the tool you use doesn’t matter, as long as the
athlete is performing the test in the same manner & the results
are reliable.

When we are looking at the vertical jump, we can look at:

1) Countermovement Jump w/ or w/o Arms (with an eccentric

load)
2) Squat Jump w/ w/o Arms (without an eccentric load)

21
This is a real simple one; you are just trying to see how much
vertical displacement an athlete gets when jumping (3 reps total).
This is a really simple test to build into your weekly assessments.

If you do not have access to the equipment to do vertical testing,

you can stick to horizontal testing. We utilize one test to measure
horizontal power:

- Broad Jump

I love this test because all you need is a tape measurer & a tool to
measure where the back heel is upon landing.

If one foot is further back then the other, measure that back foot.
This is another test you can build into your weekly assessments.

I would say through my experience, you can pick either a vertical

or horizontal test when measuring power. Performing both is a
little redundant & takes much more time.

Stick with one, develop standards & continue to assess.

22
2.4 REPEAT POWER

This is one of my favorite areas to assess with athletes. Repeated

power will show you who are the elite level athletes on your team.

To stick with the same theme as the power assessment, we are

going to be looking at tests done in the vertical & horizontal plane:

1) Vertical - Scandinavian Rebound Jump Test (10/5)

2) Broad - Triple Broad Jump

For the SRJT, you are going to need a tool that measures RSI
(reactive strength index), such as the ones I mentioned earlier.

The procedure is simple: the athlete will be instructed to jump as

high as they can while spending as little time on the ground as
possible for 10 reps.

For scoring purposes, we will take the 5 best jumps & compute
both the average & peak measurements (mostly reactive strength
index). Some of the metrics we look at are:

- Contact Time
- Jump Height
- Power
- Stiffness
- Reactive Strength Index (Jump Height / Ground Contact
Time)

23
This might not be realistic for you if you don’t have the necessary
equipment, but I have yet to see someone good at the SRJT &
not be a good athlete.

I have been doing it for 2 years & it is at the top as one of my

favorite assessments for athletic performance. This is also
another great test to build into your weekly assessments & use as
a training tool.

If you do not have the necessary equipment, the triple broad jump
is another amazing test you can use to measure repeated power
(all you need is a tape measure).

The athlete will start at the beginning line & perform three
continuous broad jumps, covering as much ground as possible
with each jump. After the test is complete, you will measure the
back heel & record the score.

Not only is this a great test for repeated power, but it also has a
strong correlation with top speed. A lot of bang for your buck with
this test, especially when it can be done so quickly with a lot of
athletes.

I chose triple broad jump because any athlete, even those with
little training experience, will be able to complete it. Although
there are a lot of technical aspects to improving certain
assessments, we want to choose ones that we can run from the
first day we see our athletes to see the starting point (or current
level) for their athletic abilities.

24
There are a lot of horizontal repeated power tests you can
perform with your athletes but I believe you need the technical
competency or a better training background to perform correctly.

Here are additional assessments we use with our higher level

athletes.

1) Standing Triple Jump

2) 5 Broad Jump
3) 10 Broad Jump

These are all great tests but may be dangerous for athletes who
have no experience performing them before & may not be
indicative of their athletic ability.

25
2.5 BRAKING / COD (CHANGE OF DIRECTION)

People often mistaken this for agility testing, but it couldn’t be any
further from it.

Agility is open ended & based on interpreting the playing

environment (i.e. reacting to a receiver running a route in football)
& reacting.

The main thing we are trying to assess when looking at our COD
assessment:

Do our athletes have the possibility of succeeding when put in an

open ended agility scenario (gameplay). A strong COD score
shows us that they have that capacity, while a poor COD score
means that we need to develop it further.

There is one test I would run to measure COD:

- 5-10-5 Shuttle

If you can, find timing gates to measure this assessment.

STAY AWAY FROM USING A STOPWATCH AS BEST YOU

CAN. They are nowhere near as accurate as a fully automated
timing system.

The athlete will start facing forward with their hand on the ground.
When they are ready they will take off either right or left for 5
yards, touch the line with their hand, sprint 10 yards the other

26
direction, touch the line with their hand, and finish by sprinting 5
yards back through the original start line.

This assessment will give you a great indication of the athletes

lateral acceleration ability as well as their ability to eccentrically
absorb & then concentrically fire in the opposite direction

Overall, a great test to get an idea of an athlete’s agility

capabilities.

27
2.6 STRENGTH

Strength is an essential component of athletic performance. We

train strength for 3 main reasons:

1) Reduce the incidence of injury

2) Improve acceleration abilities
3) Set the foundation for training other qualities.

There are two primary ways we measure strength:

1) 1 RM Testing (% BW of the athlete)

2) Isometric Belt Pull

The former is more popular & probably more practical for most
coaches, however let me briefly praise the greatness of the
Isometric Belt Pull.

The only thing that is needed to run this test is a device that
measures force – the cheapest being a crane scale.

The athlete wears a belt that is connected to the measuring

device – they will be situated at a height where when they perform
the test they will be at ¼ squat depth. When the athlete is ready
they will push against the ground as hard as possible, getting a
read on their peak force output.

I am a big fan of this test because it can be performed

immediately with little to no training experience. However, it could

28
be uncomfortable to perform without the proper belt so athletes
may not give you the highest output possible due to comfort.

I do this test with all of our athletes because it gives me

immediate feedback on strength levels, including freshman who
may have never participated in formal strength training.

1 RM testing is the most simple one to perform when looking at

an athlete's strength, but requires a learning curve.

WARNING: DO NOT PEFORM 1 RM TESTING WITH

ATHLETES WHO HAVE NEVER WORKED OUT BEFORE.

1 RM testing is fine, if done in a safe manner. BUT you as the

professional, need to know when to cut the exercise short when
evaluating an athlete's form at heavier loads.

We will never look at absolute loads for 1 RM testing because

they don’t provide much value. Rather, we will look at relative
strength, or as it relates to an athlete's body weight (Relative =
Load lifted / Bodyweight).

This will give us a better indication of where an athlete is with

regards to their strength development & if there is a lot of room to
improve other qualities, by simply improving our strength levels.

This is the 1 RM testing protocol I would perform with most

athletes:

1) Squat

29
 2) Bench
3) Clean* (experienced athletes only)

Clean has a strong carry over to athletic abilities, including force

production, so it is a good test to perform, but only if athletes
perform it correctly.

Squat will give you an idea about their lower body strength, while
bench will tell you about their upper body strength.

Some people try to negate the value of 1 RM tests, but I for one
still believe they hold tremendous value.

30
2.7 REPEATED SPRINT ABILITY

When looking at measuring repeated sprint ability, you must

understand the sports you are working with.

This will not be a necessity for all sports – only the sports where
you see the value. And not every assessment will be the same
because all sports require different levels of repeated sprint ability.

Our field sports are notorious for wanting to do some type of

“conditioning test” where our court based sports never perform
them.

But I want to give you options – so here are the three tests I
would perform to measure repeated sprint ability:

1) YoYo Beep Test #2

2) 10x30/40m Sprint Repeat Test
3) Any test recording distance covered in time

The beep test is a series of beeps that increases the athlete's

speed at each level. Here is a description of the test:

Recovery Start End Line

Setup: I—-----I—----------------------- I

First Beep: Athlete takes off sprinting to the end line

Second Beep: Indicative of half way mark (athlete should be at
the end line, changing direction back towards the start line.
Third Beep: Athlete should be through the start line

31
When they return back to the line, they must do a recovery walk
to a cone 5m away, then back to the starting line.

This is a great test assessing the repeated acceleration ability as

well as change of direction ability that an athlete possesses.

The 10 rep, 30/40m sprint repeat test is one I prefer the most.
Athletes will run 10 timed sprints of either 30m or 40m in distance
(depending on what you feel most comfortable with).
You will then take the top time they sprinted, and divide it by the
average of the other 9. A passing score would be above 90%.

I like this test because it kills two birds with one stone – sprinting
speed & repeated sprint ability.

The final type of test you can run is an assessment that records
distance covered in a certain period of time. (I.e. distance covered
in 5 seconds; repeat 10 times.

I like this better than a “reps passed test” (i.e. 16 110’s), because
this will give you a real indication of the athletes repeated sprint
ability over a given time.

You can get as creative as you want with this test & make it as
relatable to the sport the athlete is playing in.

32
 SECTION 3

SPEED WORK

3.1 ACCELERATION

33
In the summer (and with most of our programs), speed training is
our main priority.

First off let’s start off with a definition of acceleration as I like to

think of it in the most simplest forms.

ACCELERATION - the beginning portion of a sprint up until a

person reaches top speed

There are a couple of training tools we can use to develop our

acceleration:

- Hill sprints
- Resisted Sprints
- MB Throws
- Plyometrics
- Olympic Lifts
- Heavy lifting (> 80%)

There are methods to improving speed:

TERTIARY: Olympic Weightlifting, lifting, plyometrics

SECONDARY: Resisted Sprints
PRIMARY: Short/Long Sprints, Flying Sprints

In this section we are going to focus primarily on the secondary &

primary method of improving sprints.

34
Hills are one of my favorite exercises for developing acceleration.

I am not going to make this complicated by mentioning a degree

of the hill you should sprint on; find a decent length hill with an
incline and use it for your hill sprints.

Hills are my first progression before adding an “external load”

such as a sled. I put it in parentheses because in my opinion the
hill in itself is an external load.

But this acts as a great precursor to resisting sprints with a sled or

a towing device.

Here is a prescription of what I will follow for hill sprints:

Distance: 10-30m
Volume: 200-300m

We use hill sprints in our first block in the summer because I

believe they help build the base for heavier sprint work.

SLED SPRINTS

There are several methods you can use when trying to calculate
the load for sleds:

- % BW
- Set Load
- VDEC (velocity decrement)

35
I have had a ton of success with the first two methods.

With % BW, you are just taking a % of the athletes body weight to
put on the sled.

Research has a ways to go as what % BW as ideal but this is

what the latest systematic review showed as it relates to sled
prescription for loading:

TERTIARY: > 50% BW

SECONDARY: 20-50% BW
PRIMARY: 0-20% BW

Heavier sleds are observed more as strength work than actual

sled work geared towards acceleration training due to lack of hip
extension & long ground contact times. So if you are going to
prescribe sleds, you are better off prescribing loads based on the
secondary & primary percentages.

This past spring we did sled sprints using 30-50% of the athletes
BW & saw tremendous improvements in both force & power
outputs.

I think a big part of the % BW equation is seeing what works with

your athletes. Studies have looked at using loads of 115% BW &
and having success, but at the end of the day it's up to assessing
the situation to see if your athletes are improving.

Set load is the next method to use & the easiest of the three
methods.

36
The way I have used this is basically pre determine a load for the
training block (this was with one of our female teams with athletes
in the general zone of the same bodyweight):

- Heavy (100 lbs)

- Medium (60 lbs)
- Light (20 lbs)

You can break it down by position group as well (example with

football players):

- Lineman (140 lbs)

- Big skill (110 lbs)
- Skill (90 lbs)

The main point with these examples is that you still will get a
benefit in improving acceleration without the task of figuring out
the individual load.

VDEC

This is the most complicated of all three methods we will discuss.

Unless you have the necessary equipment & staff members, this
one would probably be the most unlikely to utilize with your
athletes.

This is how VDEC relates to % BW:

37
> 80% BW = > 50% Vdec
50-80% BW = 30-50% Vdec
20-50% BW = > 10% to < 30% Vdec
0-20% BW = 2.5 - 10% Vdec

VDEC is simply looking at the velocity drop off from their top
sprint speed to make a recommendation on load of the sled.
Using % BW as it relates to VDEC may be an easier way to use
this method without the grind of load profiling the athletes.

I usually look at VDEC as it relates to a given training block:

Strength: 60-100% Vdec

Power: 40-59% Vdec
Speed: 10-39% Vdec

You would need a timing device to be able to see when the

velocity decrement occurs, then use that load for the set # of reps.

I have seen great results, working a 10 week program at 50%

VDEC; this is called working at Vopt (velocity optimal for power
development).

If you are looking for the most bang for your buck with time
invested, this might be the route to take, as you only need to find
the 50% VDEC for one day & use that load for the remainder of
the block.

PROGRAMMING

38
Like I mentioned early, I like hill sprints as a prerequisite for sled
work because I believe it is a low hanging fruit in acceleration
development. Remember, you are trying to find the minimum
stimulus needed to elicit a change in your athletes.

I have been loose in my usage with volume & acceleration work.

Here are some weekly volume recommendations based on load:

Heavy - 200-300m
Power - 300-400m
Light - roughly 450m

I believe, similar to the weight room, we are looking for an ideal

stimulus – especially when it comes to speed work. Start on the
low end of volume & work your way up.

Constantly assess to see how athletes' bodies are responding.

The way I usually structure our summer program is as follows:

Block 1 - Hill Sprints

Block 2 - Sled Sprints: Force Development (5-8 sprints @ heavy
resistance - 5-10m)
Block 3 - Sled Sprints: Power Development (4-7 sprints @
medium resistance - 12-25m)
Block 4 - Sled Sprints: Transition to Max V Development (3-6
sprints @ light resistance - 25m - 35m)

Training Block Duration: 3-4 Weeks

Training Frequency: 1-2x / Week

39
After each set of weighted sprints, give the athletes 3-5 min rest &
perform 1-2 reps unweighted.

This is a great way to get the athlete more volume in an

acceleration workout with a post activation potentiation from using
the sled.

This is a general outline & a good progression to follow building

up to the fall season. I believe by following an outline like the one
I wrote above, athletes will see huge returns on their own
acceleration development.

If you are using an assessment to determine training needs, your

program might not be as linear. But you can’t go wrong
progressing sprints in a linear fashion from heavier to lighter loads
based on the methods outlined above.

3.2 PEAK VELOCITY

40
Training at top speed is paramount in all sports.

Even if the player never travels that distance in competition, there

are several benefits to training athletes at peak velocity.

The top reasons we train peak velocity with all of our athletes:

1) Training stimulus like no other – 2.5 - 5x the athletes

bodyweight of force is put into the ground with each step
2) Teaches balance, rhythm & coordination at high speeds
3) One of, if not the best, training stimulus to improve hamstring
performance & reduce the incidence of injury.
4) High CNS outputs

For all the reasons mentioned above, training peak velocity is a

necessity for all team sport athletes.

If you work with field sports, training peak velocity is paramount,

as there is a good chance athletes will be exposed to top speeds
in the game.

Many of the reasons why athletes wind up getting hurt in games,

is never being exposed to a high speed stimulus & then expecting
to be able to do it in a game with many other stressors occurring.

The result? INJURY that can sideline a player for weeks or

months.

41
Training peak velocity is a little less complicated then acceleration
work & although there are multiple ways to train peak velocity, we
are going to focus on one – Flying Sprints

Flying sprints are really simple to execute with your players in a

group setting:

Run In Zone (20m) Fly Zone (10-30m)

I—---------I------------------I—---------------------------------I
Start 10m 20m Finish

Players will start at the start cone & slowly start to build up speed.
When they approach the fly zone, athletes should be approaching
or at top speed and continue all the way through the finish cone.

My normal set up is having cones at 10m & 20m. I tell the players
to come out of the gates at 75%, when they get to the 10m mark
they should turn it up to 90% & finally 100% as they approach the
fly zone.

I prefer fly’s as my method of working on peak velocity, because

athletes get to focus on the portion that matters the most – the fly
zone where they hit top speed.

There is only one issue that I have run into with Fly’s for timing
purposes with shorter distances – some athletes do not
accelerate enough in the run in zone to hit top speed in the fly
zone.

42
This usually addresses itself when you extend the fly zone to
longer distances, but if you work with athletes that hit top speed at
further distances, you may need to extend their run in zone.

The progression I follow in the summer is as follows:

Block 1: 10m Fly w/ 20m Run In (2x3 / 2x4 / 2x2 / x3)

Block 2: 20m Fly w/ 20m Run In (2x2 / 2x3 / 2x1 / x2)
Block 3: 30m Fly w/ 20m Run In (2x2 / 2x3 / 2x1 / x2)
Block 4: 30m Fly w/ 30m Run In (2x1 / 2x2 / 1x1 / x2)

This is a simple progression – adding 10m of Fly Zone after each

block. We rarely ever get to a fourth block in the summer, but if
you find athletes doing really well at longer distances, 30m flies
are a great way to work peak velocity over longer distances.

Just as we correct form in the weight room, we should also be

correcting sprint technique.

These are the things I look for when observing athletes at top
speed:

1) Relaxed in face & shoulders

2) Arm action from the shoulder – elbow should break as it
crosses the hip
3) Slight forward lean with the upper body
4) Dorsiflexion prior to striking the ground
5) Striking underneath the COM on contact

43
Now this is a lot to look for & a lot of sprint technique will be
dependent on what the athlete naturally defaults to. This is why it
is paramount to reinforce these concepts throughout all of your
drills.

These are tough to eyeball so I would recommend filming a rep or

two each workout, watching it on your own then giving feedback
for the next session.

Whenever you are giving coaching cues, WE SHOULD ONLY BE

FOCUSING ON IMPROVING ONE THING AT A TIME.

The brain can not focus on multiple things at once, so if you try to
improve multiple things at once, you’ll confuse the athlete &
improve none.

Training Block Length: 3-4 weeks

Training Frequency: 1x / week

I have seen a few ways to program for peak velocity throughout a

training block:

1) 3 weeks increasing volume – 1 week deload

2) 1 week introduction, 1 week increase intensity, 1 week
deload, 1 week testing

If you are going to go with option #1, just add one more rep after
the second week & deload on week 4.

44
Following this outline, you should see great progress with your
athletes' top speed.

45
SECTION 4

JUMPS

46
4.1 PROGRESSIONS

Jumps are going to be one of your biggest tools for athletic

development, right next to sprints.

I have yet to come across an athlete, that was a great jumper that
wasn’t a great athlete overall.

Jumps are a huge stimulus in the development of the athlete &

one of the key components we focus on when outlining &
implementing a program for our athletes in the summer.

Just like with our acceleration work, I believe jumps training

should have a theme & correspond to the training block you are
currently working in.

There are 4 types of blocks we divide our jumps into:

- General prep
- Strength
- Power
- Speed

GENERAL PREP

This block is pretty self explanatory – we are just trying to develop

a base of jumps before we start to move to more intense &
advanced plyometric work.

47
With this block, we are reinforcing good jump mechanics &
teaching proper landing. Good jump mechanics that we look for
are:

- Chest up on loading
- Pulling the body down quickly into the loading position
- Stiff landing of approximately ¼ squat depth

Our rep range for this is a little bit higher (18-30 total jumps)
because we are trying to build a base of repping good movement
patterns, while building resiliency in our tendons & ligaments. This
is where exercises like box jumps, broad jumps, tuck jumps, lunge
jumps etc are basic jumps to work on in this block.

STRENGTH

These are the criteria our plyometric work will must fit in order to
be used during our strength block:

- Paused (1-3 seconds)

- Full depth to half squat depth
- Weighted
- Double or Single Leg
- Depth Drops (what you can absorb, you can produce)

To be honest, there are not many scenarios where we choose

single leg plyos over double leg because of the large amount of
force production we get by utilizing a double leg exercise.

48
With that being said, there is a time & place for everything, so if
you find that your athletes respond well to single leg plyos, then
you can utilize them in this block.

All of these criteria work really well when working in a strength

block & fit the theme of slower movements, working on the force
end of the force velocity curve.

I have seen great developments in our plyometric ability with the

utilization of a strength focused block.

POWER

After we develop strength, we will naturally progress to power

development. In all my years of coaching jumps I have seen that
developing power won’t be as effective without the proper
strength development that takes place prior.

There are slightly different criteria when looking to address the

power end of our plyometric development:

- Double leg
- Reactive landing
- Lightly weighted (10-20 lbs)
- Accelerated
- Potentiation Clusters
- French Contrast method
- Half depth to quarter squat depth
- No pauses

49
We are always looking for quality when training, no matter what
the exercise, but when we are in the power block, we are truly
looking to optimize every rep we have to maximize our power
development.

We will transition away from slower moving plyos & focus more on
reactiveness & speed.

We will also transition to lighter plyos, as opposed to heavy &

slower jumps we performed in the strength. Remember, this is
easier to do after starting with a base of general prep & strength
based jumps

Don’t underestimate the power (no pun intended) of strength work

prior to this block.

As we move more to power development, we want to start to

mimic joint angles, similar to what we see in sport.

Potentiation clusters are really useful during this training block.

The Potentiation Cluster method is simple – consecutive singles

for a set number of repetition (i.e. 6 rotations through).

This is what a sample of our potentiation cluster looks like:

a) Back Squat
b) Hurdle Jump
c) BB ¼ Jump
d) Accelerated Jump

50
One rep will be performed at each exercise & we will progress
from one exercise to the next. Each rep should be performed with
maximal effort.

After each exercise is completed, you have officially completed

one set. You will then continue to go through as many sets as
possible until the workout is complete.

Although this is most ideal, it may always not be the most time
efficient if working in large groups. This is where the French
Contrast Method becomes extremely effective.

Instead of doing a single at each exercise, you are going to do the

prescribed number of reps for each exercise.

This is an extremely effective method when trying to improve

power outputs.

This is what a sample of our French Contrast set looks like:

- Back Squat x2
- Hurdle Jump x4
- BB ¼ Squat Jump x4
- Accelerated Jumps x4

We will do 3-4 sets in total & cycle through this as our main
exercise pairing.

51
Either way you decide to pair your exercises, your athletes should
see tremendous improvements in their power outputs.

SPEED

After we have developed the necessary strength & power in the

previous training blocks, it is now time to work on the plyos that fit
our velocity spectrum of our training.

Remember, without the previous training blocks of strength &

power, the speed block of plyos won’t be nearly as effective.

Don’t always look for the complex method – we want to figure out
what will get us the most bang for our buck.

For those that are just beginning to train, they may not need this
method until they have spent years working on basic jumps. If
athletes are continuing to make progress with the basics, don’t
make things complicated.

That is why it is important to constantly be assessing your

athletes to figure out what stimulus is needed at different points
throughout the year.

Again, there is different criteria when trying to fit a plyometric into

our speed block:

- ¼ Squat Position
- Reactive
- Double leg

52
 - Accelerated
- Potentiation Clusters

In the speed block, all of our plyometrics need to be reactive &

quick ground contact times.

Since speed is the goal, we will remove all weighted plyometrics

from this specific block.

We are trying to mimic joint angles similar to those that they see
in their sport, so all reps will be performed in a ¼ squat position.

Accelerated plyos create that overspeed effect for our central

nervous system, so we will pair those with our reactive jumps.

Since we are going for high quality & speed, potentiation clusters
are another method we utilize during this training block.

If you touch upon these aspects during your training in the speed
block, you are going to get a strong neurological & physiological
response from your athletes.

This block fits perfectly at the end of the regular season & going
into conference playoffs as we are reducing load & increasing
speed of the movement. However, I have also used this in the
summer training with higher level & more experienced players.

I have seen tremendous increases in power output following this

method, especially later on in the competitive season.

53
PROGRAMMING

Really simple on the program end for plyos. Each block is going
to last 4 weeks & you are going to plug & play with reps & sets
scheme to figure out what has the best adaptation for your
athletes.

To keep it simple, most of our athletes do 3-4 sets of each plyo

exercise, with 4 reps being the highest amount we will perform.

If your athletes respond to higher dosing of plyometrics, you can

push the range a little bit, but remember we are working on power
development. QUALITY MATTERS.

Be engaged when coaching your jumps. We want maximum effort

on each rep to get the most benefit in our programming.

If you make your athletes better jumpers, you are going to be

elevating their overall athleticism.

54
4.2 VARIATIONS

I group our plyometrics into 4 different categories:

1) Vertical
2) Horizontal
3) Lateral
4) Bounding

We use these categories to group our plyos to fit with a specific

workout theme of the day.

For example, since horizontal plyos usually require longer ground

contact time, we will use these on days where we focus on
acceleration (similar ground contact times occur in early
acceleration).

I believe that whenever you’re programming, the theme of each

section of your workout should be congruent with one another:

- Sprints
- Jumps
- Lifts

Remember, when you chase multiple rabbits, you catch none.

Focus on one stimulus at a time & your athletes will reap the
rewards.

55
Out of the four plyo groups I mentioned, bounding is definitely the
most difficult because of the technical competency & strength
prerequisite it takes to complete them properly.

With that being said, they are one of the best plyos you can use
for athletic development.

Start with a slow progression on your bounds, then once athletes

get more proficient, you can start to progress the speed &
difficulty.

Let’s take a look at our exercise toolbox when looking at each one
of the plyo groups:

VERTICAL

- Tuck Jumps
- Lunge Jumps
- Split Stance Jumps
- Box Jumps (height of the box does not matter; each rep
should be done with maximum effort)
- Hurdle Jumps
- Depth Drops
- Depth Drops + Jump
- Continuous Hurdle Jumps
- Rear Foot Elevated Jumps
- DB Jumps
- Trap Bar Jumps
- Barbell Jumps
- Accelerated Jumps

56
 - Split Stance Accelerated Jumps

HORIZONTAL

- Broad Jump
- Resisted Broad Jump
- Double Broad Jump
- Triple Broad Jump
- Accelerated Broad Jump (avoid this unless you work with
high level athletes)
- Standing Triple Jump (advanced – start slow with technical

LATERAL

- Skater Jumps
- Resisted Skater Jumps
- Assisted Skater Jumps
- Diagonal Skater Jumps

BOUNDING

- Speed Bounds (distance used as the prescription)

- Straight Leg Bounds (distance used as the prescription)
- Single Leg Bounds (I.E. right leg, right leg, right leg)
- Alternating Bounds (I.E. right leg, left leg, right leg)

There are three spots I will place my plyos:

- Prior to sprints (speed bounds, straight leg bounds)

- Post sprints

57
 - Superset with our main lower body movement (french
contrast, potentiation cluster)

Use plyometrics where you deem necessary as the population

you are working with may respond to plyos differently at certain
parts of the workouts.

Using the program I outlined above, we have seen tremendous

improvements with our athletes jumping abilities.

58
SECTION 5

LIFTS

59
5.1 Training Blocks

When it comes to lifting (and in general, training) I believe the

best model to follow is an undulated block model:

Undulated - changing intensities & volumes throughout the week

Block Model - focusing on specific adaptation

There are a lot of different training models out there & many that I
have used successfully with my athletes, but none as successful
as the block model.

While a lot of programs focus on training multiple stimuli at once,

the block model has one singular emphasis throughout the entire
training period.

The main reason being this – stressing your body with one
specific stimulus, will lead to dramatic improvements of that
quality & will help you in training subsequent blocks.

When we look at our training blocks, similar to sprints & jumps,

we categorize our lifting into 4 blocks:

1) GPP
2) Strength
3) Power
4) Speed

60
There are certain qualities that make a stimulus fit into a certain
block & I will discuss those so you have a clear understanding
how the block model works.

GENERAL PREP

As I have talked about it previously, general prep work is

preparing the body for the following increases in intensity through
the other training blocks.

I believe in two main adaptations we are trying to improve through

a general prep block:

- Neuromuscular efficiency
- Building a base for future blocks (hormonal, muscular)

If your team is coming off of their competitive season, a general

prep block is highly recommended due to the lower intensities &
introductory back to basic movements that might not have been
used predominantly during the season.

Here are some criteria we follow during our GPP BLOCK for our
olympic lifts:

- Position: Power
- Sets: 4-5
- Reps: 4-5
- Intensity: 50-65%

61
We do all of our lifts from the power position during this block to
reinforce proper position before the third pull, a position we will
get to with all hang below the knee & from the floor variations.

This will be the highest rep scheme we follow with our olympic lifts
since the load is light & the main objective is developing efficient
neuromuscular firing patterns.

Our structure is simple when moving from one exercise tier to the
next – we will always start with our olympic lifts, coming off of
sprints (potentially jumps as well) because the exercise order
pairs really well together. The sprints act as huge priming effect
for the CNS, allowing us to jump right into our olympic lifts.

I have seen athletes perform so much better with these lifts

coming directly from sprinting as opposed to starting with them in
the beginning of the workout, without anything prior.

After that we will go into our main & accesory lower & upper body
movements. Here is the criteria for our main movements:

- Sets: 3-5
- Reps: 25-40
- Intensity: 60-77.5%

I think these are safe ranges for the accessory movements as

well. While I don’t prescribe percentages for accessory lifts, I
believe giving the athletes the cue of “it should burn on the last
few reps” is a good way to prescribe proper load.

62
There are two types of outlines I like to follow for our GPP block:

BLOCK #1

T1) Olympic Lift

T2) Main Lower + Plyo

T3) Upper Push + Upper Pull

T4) Accessory Movement

This will be our foundational structure for most of our blocks.

However this second method has worked wonders for us in our

general prep blocks:

BLOCK #2

Circuit - 6 reps ea exercise

a) Snatch
b) Clean
c) Squat
d) Press
e) Pull
f) Hamstring

This one is simple – you are going to pick a variation of each one
of the following & rep it 6 times in order.

63
After you complete one full rotation, you take a break that allows
the athlete to recover. Then you repeat the rotation for the
prescribed number of sets.

The load on this is lighter, usually at somewhere around 40% of

the athletes bodyweight, however this might not be an easy load
on the olympic movements.

For the olympic movements, we aren’t worried as much about

load as we are of efficient movement patterns, as these lifts are
highly technical.

We utilize this method 3x a week & rotate what the exercises are
in each tier, outside of the snatch & clean (both done in the power
position).

Here is our progression using this method (i.e. 2x = 2 rotations):

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

D1 - 2x D1 - 3x D1 - 4x D1 - 2x
D2 - 2x D2 - 2x D2 - 2x D2 - 2x
D3 - 2x D3 - 2x D3 - 3x D3 - 2x

You can not go wrong with either one of these methods for
general prep. Either way you choose to go, remember the goal is
to re-establish efficient movement patterns & prepare the athlete
for the blocks ahead.

64
While we are on the topic of GPP, let’s talk about two other
methods we will utilize here:

2x10 CIRCUIT

This is another method we use on our Low CNS days or in

between or our main workouts.

We will pick 8-12 exercises, usually smaller muscle groups &

exercises that fit into our accessory lifts & rotate through them 2
times, performing 10 reps at each exercise.

Same cue was used as before for prescription, as athletes should

be feeling a “burn” on their last couple of reps.

It is a way to develop smaller areas of the body, while stimulating

recovery for the following workout.

ESCALATING DENSITY TRAINING (EDT)

This is another method we will use in our GPP block or on our low
CNS days.

You will pick 2 exercises (usually an upper & a lower body) &
rotate single reps for 5 minutes. You will perform as many
rotations as possible, working at roughly 50% of your 1 RM.

Cal Dietz has called this “conditioning for the power based
athlete” & I couldn’t agree more.

65
We usually perform 3-4 sets of rotating exercises in one workout.

STRENGTH

After a general prep period is completed, we will then move on to

a block of strength work. The strength block is so important, that
for some athletes, they will spend their entire summer training
plan here, developing different forms of strength.

The goal of the block is simple – to get as strong as possible in a

way that will further develop athleticism.

There a few criteria that make exercises fit into our strength
blocks:

- Loads above or equal to 80%

- Eccentric & Isometric movements
- Olympic lifts from the floor
- Velocity of movement on non olympic lifts less than or equal
to .5 m/s

In order to get stronger, you must lift heavy loads. Key reason
why strength matters for athletes:

- Builds resilience in ligaments & tendons

- Reduces incidence of injury
- Aids in early acceleration
- Sets the foundation for training power & speed in the weight
room

66
I see the mistake quite often of people jumping straight to power
work because they believe that it is more “sport specific”.
However, strength is the lowest hanging fruit you can grab for
athletes with a low training age.

By focusing on strength development, you are checking a lot of

boxes in the holistic development of the athlete.

We have three distinct phases in our strength block:

- Eccentric (slow lowering – breaking down & forming of new

muscle)
- Isometric (strengthening with no change in muscle length –
strength the new muscle formed)
- Concentric (explosive upward movement of an exercise)

I have said it to so many people, but Triphasic Training by Cal

Dietz is hands down the best book to read for optimizing training
for athletes in the weight room. If you haven’t already, go &
purchase the book & read everything Cal has put out.

Each block lasts 2 weeks in duration with exception of our

concentric block which we will run for up to 4 weeks in total
duration.

This is the timing we use for each of the first two phases:

Eccentric - 5-10 seconds

Isometric - 3-10 seconds

67
You can eccentric & isometric phases with any exercise you
choose but the ones we mostly utilize then for are our main lower
body & upper body movements (mainly squat & bench).

If you work with an extremely advanced population I would look

into using this method with a safety bar & weight releasers to
overload the movement (needed for high level athletes to promote
changes in eccentric & isometric strength).

The safety bar hand supported split squat is another one of our
favorite movements we will utilize with these methods.

Lastly, when it comes to Olympic lifts, for our experienced athletes

we will start to pull from the blocks or from the floor.

The reason for this is simple – we want to attack the force end of
the force velocity curve in our strength blocks & pulls from the
floor & the blocks work really well here.

POWER

After a strength block is completed, we will then move on to our

power block.

Most of our power blocks will run 3-4 weeks in total duration.

The goal of this block is simple – take our newly developed

strength & shift focus on moving with higher speed at moderate
loads.

68
There a few criteria that make exercises fit into our power blocks:

- Loads equal to or in between 55-77.5%

- Full range to partial movements
- Potentiation Clusters
- Olympic lifts from the hang position below the knee
- Velocity of movement on non olympic lifts equal to or in
between .5-.75 m/s

As you can see, we progress to a lower intensity but higher bar

speed.

Weights that athletes used to struggle with prior to the strength

block, should start to move with better speed now that we have
further developed their strength potential.

We start to utilize potential clusters a lot more with our power

blocks because speed & power outputs are priority one in this
block.

We will still continue to do lifts throughout their full range of

motion during this block – but depending on what part of the year
you are in (potentially closer to competition) you can start
manipulating lifts at different joint angles (i.e. back squat from pins
at half squat depth).

Since we are transitioning to more speed based movements, we

will begin to move up the body, to do olympic lifts from below the
knee.

69
We utilize velocity based training devices, so in my years of doing
the olympic lifts, we saw speed increases as we went further up
the body. Hang below the knee has a strong effect on power
development, so that is why we utilize primarily in this block.

SPEED

After we have properly addressed both strength & power in our

athletes development, we can then start to focus on speed
development.

These blocks do not last that long, as we need to make sure we

are not losing the residual effects of strength & power
development from previous blocks.

We usually do speed & peaking later on in the competitive season

in conference tournaments & NCAA’s but there could be a
purpose for these in an advanced athletes summer training
program.

There a few criteria that make exercises fit into our speed blocks:

- Loads less than or equal in 55%

- Partial movements
- Olympic lifts from the hip
- Potentiation Clusters
- Velocity of movement on non olympic lifts greater than or
equal to .75 m/s

70
There are a few methods we use during the speed block, but one
of my favorites is the timing method.

The timing method is basically as the name suggests – the athlete

is completing an exercise for a given amount of time as opposed
to a set number of repetitions.

One of the biggest components of this is having the athlete pull

themselves down into the eccentric portion & fire up as quickly as
possible in the concentric phase.

For something like the squat, this may not necessarily mean the
athletes are going through the full range of motion. Rather they
are working rapidly in the middle portion, rapidly pulling
themselves down & firing up as fast as possible.

With this type of modality, you aren’t going to be prescribing a

significant load. We are teaching the nervous system to fire as
fast as possible to get a similar effect they will get when going
through fast movements during competition.

If you were going to go with methods other than the timing

method, this is where partial range of motion movements come
into play.

One of my favorites in this block are ¼ squats from the pins &
high handle trap bar deadlift as they are working joint angles
similar to those we will see in a jump & sprint.

71
We have seen tremendous growth in sprint & power outputs when
utilizing these types of movements in training.

Similar to the power block, potentiation clusters are another

method we utilize here because of the speed & maximum effort
we want going into each rep.

Lastly, for our olympic movements, we will perform both the

snatch & clean from the hang power position.

After using our velocity based training devices in each one of the
olympic lifts, we saw that olympic lifts from the hips produced the
greatest amount of speed that paired really well with the speed
we are looking to improve in this block.

Utilizing this block is a tool in your back pocket to maximize

athletic development but only use it when necessary.

REMEMBER THE IDEAL ORDER IS AS FOLLOWS:

GPP → STRENGTH → POWER → SPEED

72
5.2 LIFTING VARIATIONS

TOTAL BODY LIFTING

All our lifting programs will follow a total body outline for each day
of the week, regardless of the training experience of the athlete
we work with.

Regardless of what people may have told you in the past, you can
work the entire body each day throughout the week without
overtraining your athletes.

The key is to manipulate the stimulus enough to produce results

without the detrimental effects that come with overtraining.

Correct dosage & exercise selection are key when determining if

the athletes can handle what is being prescribed here.

I came to this realization when I completed The Squat Every Day

Program by Travis Mash. In this program there was one squat
variation every day of the week.

The key of this program was daily 1 RM’s that were auto
regulated based on how you felt in that given workout. Stumbling
upon this book has been one of the biggest blessings in the
development of my lifting programs as a coach.

What that program & Coach Mash taught me, is that through
proper autoregulation, you can do back to back workouts of
similar body parts without overtraining the athletes.

73
The biggest takeaway – IF YOU WANT TO GET STRONGER AT
SOMETHING YOU MUST ATTACK IT WITH HIGH FREQUENCY.

I mentioned this earlier in the book but this is the total body
approach we utilize when training our athletes:

T1 - Olympic (Clean or Snatch)

T2 - Main Lower (Squat Variation) + Plyo

T3 - Upper Push + Upper Pull (Match Horizontal press to

horizontal pull & vertical press to vertical pull)

T4 - Accessory (Single leg, hamstring, calf)

Now, depending on how many days a week your athletes are

training, you can manipulate how often you include the fourth tier
of exercises.

If you are going to do four tiers of exercises, push it to the last day
of the training week since the athletes will have 48-72 hours to
recover from the higher volume.

I firmly believe that the upper body & lower body training split
system is completely outdated. That system focuses on muscle
groups as opposed to looking at the body as one system.

74
Our central nervous system controls everything we do & no
matter whether you do an upper or lower body exercise, they both
affect your nervous system in some form.

Let’s look at this another way – if I do an upper/lower split &

workout 4 days a week I may only hit a squat 1-2x a week
depending on if I want variation on my second lower body day.

Now if I do a four day total body lift & do some lower body
movement everyday, I may squat 2-4x a week depending on the
variation I want in my workouts.

Based on those numbers, doing a total body workout everyday of

the week gives me 1-2x MORE OF THE STIMULUS then on a
split workout.

Of those two situations, which one is more likely to improve their

lower body strength faster?

I have tried & tested this theory & came to this conclusion - total
body training to be the most effective training for athletes. No
matter the training age of the athlete, you will be able to
accomplish more by following an outline that trains the total body
every day.

People often wonder why their athletes don’t get better at certain
movements & I believe the answer is simple – they are not
repping the movement enough.

75
I am not saying that lifting is the end all be all for better movement
but lifting plays a huge part in the holistic development of the
athlete.

You want your athletes to be better movers in the weight room?

Start utilizing a total body training plan with them. A lot of people
claim that it takes too long for athletes to improve at the olympic
lifts & firmly believe it’s because they are only doing them for a
small percentage of their lifting program.

If you want your athletes to improve at a movement, you have to

rep it more.

A total body training approach solves that problem immediately.

OLYMPIC LIFTS

Olympic lifts have always been a big part of our program in the
holistic development of our athletes.

These are the reasons we include olympic lifts in our program:

- Vertical Force Production

- Kinesthetic Awareness
- Synchronization between lower & upper body
- Eccentric Absorption
- Posterior chain development (upper & lower)
- Strong correlation to acceleration & peak velocity

76
Olympic lifts are some of the fastest movements you can perform
with a barbell in the weight room.

They can address the entire spectrum of the force velocity curve
& be used throughout all 4 phases of development in the weight
room.

We follow a top down approach in 4 phases for our snatch &

clean movements:

- Hang From Power Position

- Hang From Below Knee
- Power Clean/Snatch (from floor)
- Power Clean/Snatch + Squat
- Full Clean/Snatch

We, for the most part, won’t utilize the full snatch with our
athletes.

You must respect the Olympic lifts as a sport itself. There are a lot
of technical components that go into performing the Olympic lifts
correctly.

Although we don’t need our athletes to be professional weight

lifters, we can still learn technical aspects to make sure we are
getting a benefit from our olympic lifts in our program.

Don’t let anyone lie to you – it is not difficult to teach the Olympic
lifts to your athletes. However, you must feel comfortable teaching
them in a safe & effective manner.

77
If you don’t feel like you can do that, then leave the olympic lifts
out of your program.

STATIC LIFTS

These are your more traditional lifts, that are used primarily during
our main upper & lower body parts of the workout.

Static lifts are multi-joint movements that recruit a lot of different

muscle groups of the body to be able to perform the exercise.

They are performed at a speed slower than the olympic lifts, but
are important in the holistic development of the athlete.

Here is a list below of the lower body static lifts we use as

foundational parts of our program:

- Back Squat
- Front Squat
- Hatfield Squat
- Safety Bar Split Squat
- Trap Bar Deadlift
- Single Leg Variations

Here is a list below of the upper body static lifts we use as

foundational parts of our program:

- BB Bench Press
- BB Close Grip Bench

78
 - BB Incline Bench
- BB Shoulder Press
- DB Bench Variations
- DB Shoulder Press Variation
- Landmine Shoulder Press

The list can be extensive as you want it to be but these are some
of our favorite static lifts that make up a majority of the second tier
of our workouts.

ACCESSORY LIFTS

These are the exercises that predominantly make up our fourth

tier of workout program.

They are exercises that are crucial in the development of our

athlete but focus on smaller muscle groups & have a lower impact
on our CNS.

While I think most of the body is worked efficiently through the

first three tiers of our workout (olympic, lower & upper), these
exercises are important for holistic development of the athlete in
certain areas of need.

This list can be extensive as you want it to be as there are

endless exercises that focus on smaller muscle groups but I will
just name some of the big areas we focus on with our accessory
exercises:

- Hamstring - RDL (romanian deadlift), Nordic Hamstring Curl

79
 - Single leg movements - split squat, lateral step up, forward
step up, lateral lunge, step back lunge)
- Calf Exercises - Seated calf raise (soleus), standing calf
raise (gastroc)
- Lower Back - Back Extension, Single Leg Back Extension,
Reverse Hypers
- Arms - Tricep (overhead tricep extension, db skull crusher),
Bicep (DB hammer curl, DB supinated Curl)
- Shoulders - Plate Front Raise, 45 Degree Lateral Raise,
Band Tears, Face Pulls, Reverse Flys

The first three exercise groups I mentioned are PARAMOUNT for

athletic development.

The hamstring is a muscle that contributes to hip extension & a

common injury we see among athletes. Research also shows that
weak hamstrings may contribute to ACL tears.

The RDL is an exercise we include in our program year round & it

is crucial in keeping the hamstrings strong & the athletes healthy.

THE STRONG ATHLETE IS THE RESILIENT ATHLETE

The single leg movements we use here are mostly dumbbell

focused as a majority of our lower body work takes part in our first
two tiers.

We are working a lot on our hip extensors with our single leg
work, glutes & quadratus lumborum, two key areas when looking
at sprint work.

80
Calf exercises are one of the most underrated exercises when
looking at sports performance but a necessary one in your
programming.

Calf strength has been shown to improve plantar flexion strength,

which is key when looking at sprint ability. This is a subject we are
going to investigate further with our next study but is one that
needs to be included in your programming.

Increase in soleus strength has also shown to reduce the risk of

ACL injuries in athletes.

I can go down this list one by one to show the importance, but the
main idea with your accessory exercises is to pick ones you see
as “need more attention” areas & attack them with this group.

You should accomplish a majority of your programming with

sprints, jumps & your main lifts, but you can never go wrong in the
holistic development of your athlete by including this grouping of
exercises.

81
 SECTION 6

CONDITIONING

82
6.1 APPROACH TO CONDITIONING

Throughout the school year, our main focus is on speed, power &
strength development, with conditioning being one of our lower
priorities.

The reason for this is simple – they are competing in either their
fall or spring seasons & are getting a majority of their conditioning
through the sport being played.

When training athletes, the priority must be to improve speed &

power first, then move on to speed endurance. You can not train
speed endurance, without first developing speed.

Of course you can add in conditioning methods throughout the

school year, but too much conditioning will take away from
developing the qualities that matter most.

There is no question about the importance of conditioning in a

sports performance program. The ability to outlast your opponents
is a huge factor in successful programs when the pre-requisite
skill is there.

One can argue, as well, that a more conditioned player is one that
is at a lower chance of being injured. I look at conditioning in two
primary ways:

- Ability to repeat high effort activities throughout the course of

competition

83
 - The ability to recover from high effort activities to fuel future
outputs

Some see conditioning as the ability to sustain activity but that is

only one piece of the puzzle when developing a conditioning
program.

Before we dive into conditioning programs, you must understand

the three energy systems before you can understand how to train
them appropriately. I am going to break them down into their
simplest form:

- Aerobic: long lasting - ability to replenish the body with

energy after a bout of activity
- Lactic: energy system the body relies on for short duration,
but higher intensity exercise (i.e. longer then several
seconds)
- Alactic: high intensity bouts – take the longest all the three
systems to recover but produce the highest outputs

We will spend a majority of our time programming the Alactic &

Aerobic energy system, as I believe a lot of the Lactic training
methods have a poor impact on athletic abilities that contribute
the most to sport.

I am a firm believer that the best conditioning happens by

practicing the sport at a high intensity. Of course there are
situations where this isn’t enough for a given athlete but for the
most part if the athlete is giving a great effort in practice, they
should get a strong conditioning effect.

84
In the summer, this is quite a different story as athletes are
usually not as physically active as they are throughout the year.

This is where conditioning comes into play with our summer

programming.

Now, you must understand the situation of the athlete before

diving into conditioning with them throughout the summer.

Depending on the athlete you are working with, they may be

participating in other sports or in summer leagues in preparation
for the fall.

If this is the case, I would completely eliminate conditioning from

their program as that quality is being addressed by playing those
other sports.

To conditioning an athlete in this situation, would take time away

from training other qualities that are more important to their
overall success & put them in a situation where they are at risk for
overtraining.

If your athletes are not competing, I believe you can safely

condition them 1-2x a week while also developing other qualities
that are important to their athletic success.

There are 3 training zones we will focus on with our conditioning:

1) Aerobic Threshold
2) Lactate Threshold

85
3) V02 Max

86
6.2 VARIATIONS

I want to provide you as much information as possible, but many

of these variations will not be necessary to use with your athletes.

This is the only time where I believe “sports specificity” comes into
play. I am not going to provide a volleyball player & a soccer
player with the same conditioning program – that would be
negligent as a coach to prescribe a blanket conditioning program
for athletes across all sports.

Let’s dive into the different training types & how we utilize them
with our athletes in the summer.

AEROBIC THRESHOLD

Our go to training for aerobic capacity in the summer (and

throughout the year) are tempo runs.

The exercise is performed exactly as it sounds – at a prescribed

tempo for a specific distance.

The way I cue my athletes to have the largest impact is as

follows:

- Accelerate out at 90% effort

- Progressively get to vertical position (same as accel to max
velocity transition)
- Cruise at 75% intensity
- Strike under COM

87
 - Strong arm action
- Relaxed upper body & face

As you can see, a lot of these cues are the same as when we are
working on our sprint mechanics.

An underrated aspect of tempo runs is the ability to get a lot of

reps in with efficient mechanics. Since athletes aren’t focused on
the outputs, they can put a lot of their attention into running
efficiently with the prescribed mechanical cues.

Charlie Francis, all world sprint coach, made tempo runs

infamous in his use of them with his sprinting athletes. Not only do
they have tremendous value for speed athletes, but athletes of all
sports.

These are some criteria we use when prescribing our tempo runs:

Distance Per Rep: 60m-400m

Recovery: 50-60m walk
Set Recovery: 100-120m walk
Effort: 65-75% Intensity
Total Distance Covered: 720m-5000m
Reps Per Set: 4
Total Sets: 4-5

There are obviously large ranges & I rarely ever get my athletes
to the top unless we are working with those competing at the
professional level but as a coach you must use discretion as to
what is needed for the group you are working with.

88
The athletes should not be gassed when performing these
workouts – it should be challenging but they should still be able to
talk while in between reps.

I would say that for sports like volleyball, softball, baseball &
football we will be on the low end of the volume range; sports like
basketball & lacrosse we will be in the mid to upper range; sports
like field hockey & soccer we will be in the upper volume range.

Always build up to the larger volumes. My rule of thumb is we

start at 50% of our total volume goal & build up safely from there.

The recovery we utilize is an active recovery where the athletes

walk in between reps.

It is uncommon in team sports for athletes to just be standing

around so we utilize the walking period between our reps to coach
our athletes up on the following:

- Breathing as a recovery technique

- More distance covered per workout

There are other methods to develop aerobic capacity, including

circuits & EDT, but since our goal is to develop other capacities in
the weight room, tempo runs fit really well for our choice of
aerobic development here.

89
Fair warning for the development of aerobic capacity – I would
stay as far away from long distance running as my primary
method for the development of aerobic capacity.

My reason is fairly simple – we are trying to make our athletes as

fast, powerful & strong as possible. That means gearing our
training towards the development of our fast twitch fibers.

Long distance, & endurance training in general, shifts the

expression of our fibers to being slower to be able to train at
longer distances.

Listen, there are some coaches that believe there is no harm, no

foul in training with long distance running. As long as you are
constantly assessing your athletes to make sure it isn’t affecting
the qualities that matter, you can prescribe some long slow
distance, if that is your preferred method.

I believe the only time to do long distance training is when an

athlete enjoys it as a training method & uses it as a way to
destress.

With that being said, I wouldn’t recommend it as something they

do often in their training.

LACTATE THRESHOLD

After a base of aerobic training is done, we will start to increase

the intensity of our training by moving onto lactate threshold
training.

90
Lactate threshold is when our body starts to produce more lactate
then we would at resting levels causing fatigue. Our goal is to
raise our lactate threshold, or when fatigue starts to kick in.

This is a very taxing form of training, so I would use this sparingly

after you progress from your aerobic training (1x a week is more
then sufficient to touch this stimulus).

These are the parameters we use for our lactate threshold

training:

- Work to Rest Ratio: 2:1 (I.e. 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off).

- Work Per Set: 10-20 minutes
- Total Work: 20-60 minutes
- Intensity: 85% Effort
- Breathing: Can speak a sentence

Remember when you are doing this type of training, you should
be using time as your primary way to track reps & not distance.

The primary reason being that not everyone will cover the same
amount of distance for a given set & that could put more stress on
the less trained & less stress on the higher trained athlete.

We mostly use this training method with our field sport athletes in
the summer (soccer & field hockey) as they have the biggest
need for this type of training.

91
Otherwise, this isn’t a method I would use with a lot of athletes as
the effect it has on fatigue is high & that would affect the other
qualities we are looking to improve.

VO2 MAX

After we have established two blocks of both aerobic & lactate

threshold development, we can start focusing on our V02 Max
Training.

V02 Max training focuses on improving the ability of the body to

uptake oxygen & use it throughout exercise.

Higher V02 scores equate to better fitness levels. Although we

most likely will never perform a V02 test with our athletes, this
type of training is beneficial for athletes of all sports.

Improving V02 levels has also been shown to improve repeated

sprint ability, which should be one of the main objectives of your
conditioning program for your players.

These are the parameters we use for our V02 Max training:

- Work To Rest Ratio: 1:1 (I.e. 30s on, 30s off)

- Work Per Set: 3-6 minutes
- Total Work: 10-20 minutes
- Intensity: 90-95% Effort
- Breathing: Can speak a phrase

92
We will perform this type of training, the block before we head into
camp in the fall.

This is very intense so you could most likely perform this type of
training 1x a week along with your other training methods &
continue to see improvement in repeated sprint ability.

With our field sports we use the following outline:

1) Start at the corner of the soccer goal line

2) Sprint straight, the entire width of the field, turning at the
goaline in front of you
3) Finish at mid field.

Like I said earlier, I’d rather my athletes condition through their

sport, but if I had to do this with football or court based sports, I’d
probably do shorter reps of 10-20 seconds.

Once again, you should be using time as your method for each
rep as opposed to distance because of varying fitness levels with
your athletes.

Remember, our goal isn’t to fatigue our athletes with our

conditioning program. We want all of our athletic qualities to
improve together.

DO NOT CRUSH YOUR ATHLETES PRIOR TO THEM

RETURNING IN THE FALL

93
This will not prepare them physically & although there may be an
initial increase in their fitness levels, they will quickly plateau a
few weeks into the year.

Always have a plan for your conditioning, as too much volume

could be detrimental to the development of more meaningful
athletic qualities.

Conditioning has tremendous value, but only in the right context.

In closing, condition your athletes in a progressive manner if they

aren’t playing their sport. If they are playing the sport, let the sport
being played at a high level be all the conditioning they need.

Even with athletes playing their sport, there still may be a need for
additional conditioning.

By having assessments built into your program, you will be able to

determine where your athletes need to continue to develop in
order to be able to compete at the highest level.

94
SECTION 7

TAKE HOME
PROGRAMS

95
7.1 Take Home Programs

I wanted to dedicate a section to this because of the headaches I

created for myself when trying to make effective take home
programs for my players.

You have to strike the delicate balance of finding things athlete’s

are able to do on their own in a safe manner, while being realistic
about what they will be able to complete in a different setting &
atmosphere.

DO NOT DRIVE YOURSELF CRAZY OVER CREATING

SUMMER PROGRAMS

It is something I struggled with my first couple of years as I tried to

create the perfect summer program.

The big conclusion I came to about creating summer programs –

make it a good program that the athletes can improve on, while
mastering the basics, addressing key training areas without
driving yourself crazy about the program not being individualized
enough.

There is something you must realize – athletes that do not train

with you in the summer, will not get the same individualized
program as if they were with you in person. THIS IS TOTALLY
FINE.

Athletes can still benefit from a general program as long as they

put their maximum effort into it.

96
We are catering these programs to the athletes that will actually
do them – do not worry if someone does not follow your summer
program.

Here is the basic outline I follow when designing our summer

program:

- Figure out length of summer

- Figure out what stimulus to address
- Write a formula for each training day
- Plug & play with different exercises for each training block

FIGURE OUT LENGTH OF SUMMER

You can’t make a schedule without first understanding how many

weeks you have until the athletes return.

Sit down at a calendar & map out the entire summer from start to
beginning.

FIGURE OUT WHAT STIMULUS TO ADDRESS

I progress all my take home summer programs in a linear fashion:

GPP → STRENGTH (ECC) → STRENGTH (ISO) → STRENGTH

(CON) → POWER

97
If it is a fall competition team that just trained, we will take away
the general prep block as they just went through a 12 week
training block & don’t have the need for it.

If it is a winter or spring sport that I am sending this program to,

we will most likely take away the power block as that isn’t the
biggest need for them in the summer.

I can also see an argument for going back to GPP for everyone
as there is no negative in reinforcing good movement patterns in
this block.

WRITE A FORMULA FOR EACH DAY

Each one of my take home programs, follow the same outline as if

the athletes were with me in person:

- Reflexive Performance Reset

- Ankle Rocker Drills
- Sprint Mechanics
- MB Throws
- Main Sprint Drill
- Lift + Plyo

This is our lift outline for each day:

T1 - Olympic Lift (Snatches & Cleans)

T2 - Main Lower + Plyo (mostly squats & trap bar deadlifts)
T3 - Upper Push + Upper Pull (one day horizontal, one day
vertical, one day accessory to support the main upper body)

98
T4 - Accessory (hamstring, single leg, calf, lower back)

Everyday has the same exact outline in both our take home & in
person summer programs.

You can follow whatever outline you like, but the one I just
outlined has worked really well for our athletes.

This allows you to write out what you can to accomplish each day
without having to go crazy about changing up the stimulus every
new training block.

Write down your outline & stick with it for the entire summer
program. You will save yourself a lot of big headaches with this
formula.

PLUG & PLAY WITH DIFFERENT EXERCISES FOR EACH

TRAINING BLOCK

Now that you have your outline set for each workout, all you have
to do is see what block you are in & plug & play with exercises.

Let me take you through an example with the squat for our take
home program:

GPP: Back Squat 4x7

STRENGTH (ECC): Back Squat (5:0:X) 4x2 @ .85
STRENGTH (ISO): Back Squat (0:3:X) 4x2 @ .85
STRENGTH (CON): Back Squat (5:0:X) 4x2 @ .85
POWER: Back Squat 4x3 @ .65

99
By deciding I wanted to do back squat as my main lower body
movement on the first day of the training block, I can now plug &
play & outline my entire TIER 1 - DAY 1 program for the entire
summer.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED TO WORK

If any athlete follows this on their own while they train at home,
they will continue to make progress.

Don’t go crazy with summer programming take home packets –

outline your summer, figure out the stimulus you want to address,
outline your training day & plug & play exercises.

That is it – that is all you need to send out a successful summer

pack to your athletes at home.

100
SECTION 8

MASTER THE
MUNDANE

101
8.1 THE MUNDANE

I heard Coach Travis Mash talk about “mastering the mundane” &
getting good at the little things, that might not be as “flashy” but
drive high performance.

That can not be any more true then the following in your summer
programs:

- Nutrition
- Hydration
- Sleep

We send all of our athletes with some literature they can quickly
look at as a way to guide their summer plans for their training.

Education is necessary for the athletes to understand how to

optimize their training.

Will everyone listen & read what you sent out? No – and that’s
fine.

Our job is to educate. It is up to the athlete to put the work in to

become the best athlete they can possibly be.

These topics should be courses of their own, but our job is to

provide some basic knowledge for our athletes to follow when
they are with us, as well as when they are on their own in the
summer.

102
Here are notes I share with my athletes in their summer packet on
how they can maximize their training by “mastering the mundane”

103
8.2 NUTRITION

Nutrition may be one of the most underrated factors in an

athlete’s training but is one of the most important aspects that will
help with their developing and recovery from training & field
competition.
Proper nutrition will help increase lean mass muscle, while
helping to decrease unwanted body fat – both crucial to improving
sports performance.
When looking to improve an athlete’s nutritional intake we must
focus on the three macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and
fats.
Nutrient timing before, during, and after workouts/competition will
be key in optimizing protein synthesis & stimulating recovery.
Here is a breakdown looking at some tips we give our athletes as
it regards macronutrient consumption.
PROTEIN
Alternate meals containing 25 to 35 g of high quality protein (2-3 g
of leucine), with snacks in between containing BCAA’s (branch
chain amino acids), or a combination of BCAAs and a
carbohydrate source (carbohydrate intake will be determined by
the goal of the athlete).

Some protein options include milk (whey/casein) proteins, egg

proteins and meat proteins; athletes can also consume plant
proteins such as pea protein to meet nutritional needs.

104
Whey protein should be consumed immediately after a workout or
on field play to increase protein synthesis, while casein protein
should be consumed before sleep to keep a positive net protein
balance within the body.

1.6-2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight is

recommended to improve lean mass gains (ratio can possibly be
as high as 2-3 grams per kilogram based on the athlete).

To find weight in kilograms = weight in lbs / 2.2

CARBOHYDRATES
In terms of general carbohydrate intake, 55-65% of total energy
with a variety of natural carbohydrate food sources including
fruits, vegetables and their juices as well as whole grain products
etc.

A general recommendation would be 6-10 grams of

carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight depending on the
gender and type of sport.

Ingest carbohydrates as soon as possible after completion of

exercise. Ingest 1.0-1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of
body weight during the first 30 minutes after exercise and every 2
hours for at least 4-6 hours thereafter

FATS
Should make up about 20-35% of an athlete’s diet depending on
the sport.

105
Important to consume a high level of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty
acids to help reduce inflammation associated with activity.

Additional fish oil supplementation can help reduce inflammation

caused from exercise.

The intake of fats close to workouts may actually interfere with

performance

ADDITIONAL PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Combination of carbohydrates and protein supplementation
before and after exercise to maximize gains.

Additional 1-2 small protein-rich meals could ideally be consumed

to capture peak stimulation for up to 3 hours post exercise.

Casein protein consumption (anywhere from 20-40g) prior to

sleep can improve overnight protein balance.

Higher protein intakes of up to 35% of daily energy intake will

safely and effectively promote greater weight loss, fat loss, and
preservation of lean man.

Supplementation 24-hours post exercise provides a greater

anabolic response then supplementation without exercise.

106
8.3 HYDRATION

I find hydration to be one of the most underrated factors for sports

performance & often an area that is neglected when teaching
athletes about proper fueling of their body.

Here are some notes we share with our athletes as it relates to

hydration.

- Loss in body weight of 2-3% can lead to serious detriments

in sports performance
- Easiest way to tell is by the color of your urine (clear to pale
yellow a good indication)
- Fruits and vegetables made of mostly water and an easy
way to get extra vitamins and minerals
- Salty sweater = saltier drinks and foods before activity (also
drink soups and vegetable juice)
- Gatorlyte packets are good options for refueling necessary
electrolytes
- Drink throughout the entire day; reusable bottle if possible

GUIDELINES FOR HYDRATION & ACTIVITY

• 2-3 hours before activity = 16 ounces (1 bottle)
• 15 minutes before activity = 8 ounces
• During = 4 ounces every 15-20 minutes (2-3 big gulps)
• After = 16-20 ounces for every 1 lb of bodyweight lost (1 -
1.24 bottles)
• Sports drinks are designed to replace sodium that is lost
during exercise

107
• They also contains carbs (main source of energy during
exercise) as well as vital electrolytes
• Biggest benefit to salty sweaters and those that exercise for
longer than 60 minutes
• A few gulps (2-3) of sports drinks every 15-20 minutes during
exercise can be beneficial to the athlete.

Hydration is an important aspect to understand, especially for

players once they get into their training camps.

Providing them with this knowledge in the summer, can allow

them to make this part of their routine so they can easily
implement these practices when they return to school.

108
8.4 SLEEP

All of us should be preaching the importance of sleep & how

athletes will struggle to improve without following the proper sleep
practices.

Simply put, without proper sleep you will struggle to maximize

your athletic potential & increase the risk of severe injury.

We should be getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep at night if we

are looking for improvements in performance.

Few tips I like to give to my athletes with regards to strong sleep

practices:

- Have a set schedule you adhere to for both the week & the
weekend (should both be the same time).
- Have a bedtime routine that reduces tv time & use of
electronics
- Make sure the room is dark & cool (ideally 67 degrees)
- If you must use electronics, make sure to purchase blue ray
glasses with use
- Meditate / practice mindful breathing exercises prior to sleep
- Have a notebook next to your bed to write down any
thoughts you may have as your lying in bed – you want your
mind to be free prior to going to bed
- Write down 3 big wins of the day – be proud of what you
accomplished.

109
This is the chart I show my athletes with regards to proper sleep
habits.

Feel free to use this as well.

110
 SECTION 9

CLOSING THOUGHTS

111
CLOSING THOUGHTS

I can’t thank you guys enough for purchasing this book. It means
the world to me that you entrusted me to learn more about
programming for your athletes.

I hope you were able to take away something that can influence
your summer programming in order to maximize the athletic
potential of your players.

Remember, the summer is a crucial time of development – we

can make significant progress with our athletes training under the
implementation of the right training program.

If you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out to me at any
one of the contacts below.

Follow me on social media as I try to release meaningful info

every single day that could potentially help impact your athletes.

Thank you for your support

God Bless

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: bigk28
Instagram: bigk28 (personal) & ferrara.fitness (business)

112