In theory building an athlete is simple…

Find a weakness build up that weakness so that he/she reaches a higher level of performance and repeat the process over and over and over. This is what we do with our seasoned athletes. However, to find those weaknesses athletes need to be pushed to the brink with max effort training. You see, weaknesses, only present themselves upon failure. If an athlete is never pushed to failure you will never see their weakness. The problem… is that young athletes today lack the physical fitness to train with that type of intensity.

Some athletes especially younger athletes will have glaring areas that need to be built up. Their posture is usually crappy with rounded shoulders, knees caving in when squatting/jumping/lunging and quite frankly they are just overall generally weak in most areas… Abs, low back, upper back, legs, hips, etc. These kids need what we term GPP (General Physical Preparedness). This is a general fitness program aimed at bringing overall strength and fitness to the point where the athlete can handle the basic fundamentals and they have a solid base of fitness/endurance. GPP is a stepping stone to more a more intense performance based training program.

All of our athletes start with GPP but how long they need to train at this level depends on many factors (chronological age, training age, skill level, frequency, attitude, etc) Usually high school kids only need a few weeks to a few months here. Most younger MS kids will spend a few months to a few years at this stage.

When you see videos of our guys and gals lifting 400 and 500+ pounds they didn’t just walk in here and do that. It was a process of months and usually years of training.

Most parents, athletes, and coaches screw this up by giving an athlete training that they are not ready for. They lack the base of fitness/fundamentals to execute higher intensity training and then progress stalls completely. I see this in HS weight rooms all the time. Most athletes totally waste their off-seasons. Its like going to algebra with out learning how to add, divide, subtract, multiply. Progress is steady and fast when the training program and dosage is correct.

(I did a 5 part series on BT vs HS Weight Rooms and you can find it in the previous article but here is the part 1 video on coaching: https://youtu.be/XK5Wekz7dAc)

In our program athletes must hit certain benchmarks before graduating up to more intense training. You would be surprised how some pretty good athletes lack general overall fitness. Most kids lack the ability to do correct pushups, pull ups, body weight squats and lunges. Ask an athlete that is new here to push a sled a few times and 90% of the time they are outside under the “puke tree”. This is not normal and to allow kids to participate in competitive sports with this type of preparedness is not right.

Now more than ever, athletes need training to build that base of fitness. Most kids are very sedentary even if they play sports. They practice then sit around. This is why injuries in youth sports are at a staggering rate in my opinion. Most athletes are totally un-prepared physically to participate in the sport they play.

This GPP is something that once attained should be maintained throughout the year and career of an athlete. Athletes can take breaks from playing but they can’t afford to get out of shape. In my experience, this is a huge setback, lasting 6 months to a year or more for some athletes.

If you’d like to see how physically prepared your athlete is let me know. Many parents are very surprised how un-fit their kid is.