There are many different ways to program, and one way isn’t necessarily wrong and one right. I think it is more so the style of the coach and the ages/type of athletes you are working with and their skillsets/athletic abilities. More important than the program is how well the coach does their job. You can have a really bad program, but a really great coach, and the athletes in this situation will show more improvement as opposed to a really great program with a really bad coach. Depending on the faults of the coach, the athlete could become more injury prone down the line, or they may even get an injury due to stuff done incorrectly in the weight room and the coach not making the proper corrections.

The first and foremost thing to take into account when writing a program, as stated by Mike Boyle, should be INJURY REDUCTION. Reduction is said because one can’t really avoid injury in sport, and it is probably going to happen on the field as opposed to in the weight room. I personally haven’t been injured a ton compared to most people in sport; when I was younger I jammed different fingers multiple times playing basketball, in highschool tennis I somehow got golfer’s elbow, in volleyball dislocated my finger, after running consistently for a while was diagnosed with itb friction syndrome..probably from the half marathon I didn’t quite train correctly for, in college tennis strained my groin, and in college rugby strained my rotator cuff and got two minor concussions…on second thought maybe I acquired a decent amount of injuries over the years…Perhaps if I had somebody in the weight room that could have advised me on common injuries and specific exercises to do that would have helped to prevent some of this stuff, they may have not occurred. Reducing the likelihood of injury will not only increase the longevity of the athlete’s sports career, but it will also improve their quality of life. The second goal of a program also stated by MB should be to improve sports performance.

It is important to first identify common sports injuries, or if evaluating the athletes individually, which injuries they may be more prone, and incorporate this into the program. If the “athlete” isn’t training for a specific sport, you can take a step back and be more general with what injuries they may be prone to or what areas are going to be weak that should be strengthened. For example, MB mentions in his book, “Advances in Functional Training”, that he kept noticing when he sent his athletes to physical therapists, they kept finding the same muscles were weak; hip stabilizers, spine, and around the scapular thoracic joint, meaning weakness in the abdominals, hips, and scap muscles. It is interesting how where the pain is coming from may not necessarily be the problem. When I interned at a Physical Therapy Clinic a few summers ago, the guy there said that he rarely finds the area where the patient has pain in to be the problem, instead it is the segment above or below where the issue lies. For example if there is back pain, the cause may be a hip problem. Lower back pain could mean weak abdominals, knee pain to weak hips, and weak rotator cuff to scap issues.

I will mention a few more programming thoughts/ideas from MB’s “Advances in Functional Training” (I am only 25 pgs. in so far, and I highly recommend the book). A program should incorporate Functional Training, which is practice/preparation for handling bodyweight in all planes of motion. FT=PURPOSEFUL TRAINING, and in general every element of a program should have a PURPOSE. FT is essential because it allows one to use stabilizer muscles which are one of the main contributors to injury. FT doesn’t have to be some elaborate exercise that sounds ridiculous, but should instead be basic and make sense. MB advises to not “fall in love with exercises” but do “pick exercises that choose results.” Although, I feel like certain S&C facilities will have exercises that are almost always incorporated into programs such as at Northeastern, the main three exercises are the bench, squat, and clean. I guess these can also be cycled in and out and be done in different various like incline bench, one arm bench, db bench, bb bench, fr. sq, back sq, single leg, bulgarians, bulgarians from a deficit, and the clean can be cycled in and out with high pulls, jump shrugs, snatch, db snatch, or perhaps at the lower level, box jumps.

If you are not consistently getting results, you need to REEVALUATE and CHANGE/FIX what needs to be fixed. MB advises it is fine to experiment, then one should evaluate their athlete’s progress, and either reject it or keep it. One thing MB said that really made me think is that you shouldn’t just copy the best programs, because those aren’t necessarily going to work well for your athletes. The athletes and population that each strength coach/personal trainer is going to work with are different, so it doesn’t make sense to copy somebody else’s program. Just because the athletes are the highest caliber, does not mean their program is also the best one out there. It also doesn’t make sense to use a program for elite athletes for beginner athletes. Instead, INDIVIDUALIZE a program to the needs of your own athletes. A great quote by MB is,” Seek techniques of those who consistently produce great results in less than ideal situations.” Again, RESULTS are key, because that determines the success/failure of a program.

Progressions are also key when programming. An athlete should never be allowed to further progress until they can perform the previous movement flawlessly. Regression to get something perfect, is always better than progression without mastery. For example, before an athlete squats they should be able to perfectly do a BW squat, and if they can’t do that correctly,  an assessment should be done on what they need to work on to be able to do that correctly. Possible things to work on are ankle mob, hip mob, or lateral hamstring stretching.

It’s helpful when programming to have a go to exercise pool with progressions, regressions, and exercises divided up into categories such as LB push (knee dominant), LB pull (hip dominant), UB push, UB pull, core, olympic lifts. It’s important to make sure the program is balanced in terms of movements; pushes and pulls, LB and UB, abduction, and adduction. It may be beneficial to pair mobility/prehab exercises with lifts to show the immediate benefit in order to gain trust from your athletes, such as the hang clean with a t-spine rotation. The lift/conditioning should be efficient. On average an athlete may only be in the weight room with you for 4-6 hours a week in season, so it’s vital to make the most of your time with them. You must note that if you push heavy and hard frequently you have to deload frequently. At Eric Cressey’s facility, his athletes cycle through different loads depending on the week; week 1 heavy, 2 moderate, 3 very heavy, 4 light/recovery week. One sample model for the main part of a 4 day lift could be LB push/UB pull day 1 and 4, and LB pull/UB push day 3 and 5. There are many different ways to program, these are just some ideas of things to incorporate and  guidelines to follow and take into consideration.