It would’ve been easy to create another brand-new workout with different recreational equipment. But a more powerful lesson rather than starting at ground level in terms of skill, was for the students to observe their strengths and weaknesses and then create a plan to reach a new level of skill mastery.

The cool thing about this setup is we had a high possibility of creating new benchmarks and brand-new levels of mastery, which were more valuable than throwing a ball in a hoop or hitting a ball over a net (two activities by which these students have experienced failure through participation).

Joe DeFranco has one of his female volleyball athletes perform a barbell complex using a tsunami bar

James “The Thinker” Smith answers questions from the Elitefts.com™ Q&A.

When I first decided to pursue powerlifting seriously, I knew I could be good. How good? I didn’t know.