What Makes a Good Athletic Development Program?
Like coaching, strength and conditioning is an industry without best practices or professional standards. It’s riddled with different beliefs and opinions on the best ways to get results, and contradicting information runs rampant. Everyone from the 30 year veteran still writing programs like it’s 1980, to the unqualified fitness influencer citing sources from 1912 explaining how water is inherently bad for athletic development (yes, that actually happened), puts out information, muddying the water for those of us trying to simply do what’s best for our athletes. With that in mind, I want to lay out a few components that make a good (and safe) athletic development program, so that the reader can begin to understand what they should look for.
The program keeps athletes safe. As crazy as it sounds, this isn’t the first thing many coaches think of when building/designing their programs. Far too often, coaches have other priorities that supersede the athletes’ safety. Look no further than coaches who use fitness as a punishment to see that this mindset still exists. A safe program will be extremely simple and will feel like it’s building you up rather than breaking you down. Beyond that, safe programs won’t ask you to do anything you can’t currently do. They will meet you where you’re at and progress from there, rather than asking you to start from a level you aren’t ready for.
Speaking of progression, a good athletic development program will slowly and appropriately progress athletes. The idea behind a great program isn’t to crush athletes, it’s to apply just enough stress to stimulate adaptation so that their bodies can adapt at an appropriate rate. Over time, a good program will slowly apply more stress after the body has adapted to continue this progressive adaptation process, a process aptly named, “progressive overload.”
With that in mind, a good athletic development program will always feel manageable/attainable. Sure, it may be challenging, but it will never feel overwhelming. If you feel like it’s asking you to do too much, it probably is.
Check your sourcing. Avoid programs or tips that come from people who are not qualified to give them. Instead, look for tips and programs from people who develop athletes similar to you for a living and have a collection of success stories.
Lastly, and most importantly, a good program will put the athlete first. It doesn’t necessarily need to be personalized to you, but it needs to fit your needs. Make sure that the program you complete will actually help you reach your goals and improve your performance on the field/court/ice/etc.
Hopefully, sticking to these tips will help you weed out the bad information/programs from the good ones, and will allow you to reach your goals and have success in your sporting endeavors. If you want to avoid wading through the weeds all-together, simply contact us, and let us work with you reach your athletic potential.
