A few months ago I did a series of videos called “BT vs The HS Weight Room”. In one video I explained how many HS Weight Rooms fall short in being able to safely progress an athlete from beginner to advanced. They basically throw a bar on the kid and say have at it. The problem is that untrained athletes flounder. They need to be progressed from 0 to 10 so they see progress. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/XK5Wekz7dAc

In the above video I talked about not having progressions for the beginners. However, in many HS Programs and also other professional training facilities I also see the opposite. Many are afraid to push and train the kids hard and the athletes never get out of an initial GPP (general physical preparedness) phase.

For example, a goblet squat with a kettle bell or dumbell is a great way to teach a beginner to squat but it will do little for the athlete that has the required strength level. If building maximal and in turn explosive strength is the end goal then at some point you have to have the athletes moving some weight with a barbell.

Same with jumps. A basic box jump is great and should be used but at some point the athletes need to progress up.

Remember everything works until it stops working. Thats basically a funny way to remind you of the law of accommodation. The better the athlete and the more training age they have the quicker they will accommodate to a training stimulus. If you just keep running sprints.. you will get no faster because of the speed barrier. If you just keep squatting with the same stance, same bar, and same speed you will get no stronger in the squat.

To tie it all up, a training program has to be able to progress down for beginners and progress up for the advanced when they are ready. At BT we follow a conjugate programming model. Main lifts are rotated literally every week. Jumps and speed training are usually in 3 week waves. Accessory lifts change as often as need be or when progress slows on them. So some members might due an accessory for 4-6 weeks and somebody more advanced might do them for 1-2 weeks before switching. With this model we are constantly analyzing the readiness of an athlete and we avoid accommodation all together because we know that in trained athletes the same lift for over 3 weeks in a row over 90% and it will go backwards.