Programming Thoughts

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about my program. I'm not making major changes, just trying to maximize strength gains AND make sure the athletes are fresh and feeling really good at the end of a training cycle. What I've noticed is that my athletes (especially football) can do a buttload of work (running and lifting). Just because they can do all of the work doesn't necessarily mean that it's optimal. That being said, I'm not into heart rate monitors and all that crazy science crap. Plenty of athletes had tremendous success before technology. Plus, it's not in my budget. What is very easy for me to notice is how they move/look. It's very easy to tell when a group of athletes are beat up. Their energy level sucks, their pre-warm-up warm-up is slow and lazy. And, they don't talk as much. These are things I start to notice as we get into our 6th and 7th weeks of an 8 week training program. In an attempt to avoid this I'm looking at making some tweaks to what we do. Currently, I'm experimenting on our basketball teams for the next month. It's not really a long enough test, but it will give me an idea as to whether I'm on to something or not. The things I'm looking at are:

• Have a bar on their shoulders 3x a week
• Eliminating some assistance movements
• Focusing on assistance movements that everyone knows work very well

The main idea is to get right down to the nuts and bolts, if you will, of a program. The only unnecessary and useless movement I'll keep is curls. I have to throw them a bone very now and then. The preliminary idea looks like this: Day 1

• Jumps/Throws/Mobility
• Olympic Lift
• Plank
• Trap Bar
• Mobility
• Incline (BB or DB)
• DB Squat
• RDL
• Rows
• Hamstring Health
• Push-up/Pull-ups/Dips
• Prowler (single-leg work/conditioning)

Day 2

• Jumps/Throws/Mobility
• Push Press
• Plank
• Bench
• Shoulder Health
• DB RFESS
• Rows
• GHR/PGH
• Push-ups/Pull-ups/Dips
• Prowler or Tire Flips

Day 3

• Jumps/Throws/Mobility
• Olympic Lift
• Plank
• Squat
• Mobility
• Bench (BB or DB)
• Lateral Squat
• RDL
• Row
• Hamstring Health
• Push-ups/Pull-ups/Dips
• Prowler

This is just an idea right now. As I mentioned, I'm working this with basketball right now to see how it plays out. Worst case, I go back to squatting 2x a week and pulling 1x. Sometimes I (coaches) get caught up in ideas/beliefs and stick with an idea because that's what we've done in the past. Just because we did it doesn't mean it's right. Hell, we used to bloodlet. Medical science figured out that isn't good. Today was basketball's first workout since the season so we did the Day (Trap Bar) workout and I did it along with them. Honestly, it was terrible. I'm in pretty good shape so I wasn't dying. But, it wasn't easy. That's what I'm shooting for. Tough, but not terrible. I should never beat them up so badly that they feel terrible (assuming they're in decent shape - which these guys are). I'll do my best to update each workout. Hopefully, my experiment is successful. If it isn't, they certainly won't get worse by working out.