An in-person, coach-led training program built specifically for 15–18 year old athletes.
Muscle. Strength. Athleticism.
Built the right way.
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” / Vince Lombardi
There's a meaningful difference between building muscle for appearance and building muscle that makes you a more capable athlete.
Bodybuilding trains muscles in isolation, bicep curls, leg extensions, chest flyes. The goal is hypertrophy for its own sake: size and symmetry as the end product. The muscle looks strong. But it's trained to perform in a controlled, fixed range of motion, not in the unpredictable demands of sport.
For a developing teenager, an exclusively bodybuilding approach can create imbalances, limit mobility, and build a body that looks capable but doesn't move that way.
Functional training builds muscle through compound, multi-joint movements (squats, deadlifts, presses, pulls) that mirror how the body actually moves in sport and life. The result is muscle that's strong through a full range of motion and transferable to any athletic demand.
A teenager who builds this kind of strength doesn't just look like an athlete, they move like one, perform like one, and stay healthier because their body is balanced and resilient.
Every training day is built around the same four-part framework: Movement, Power, Strength, and Skill/Endurance, in that order. The sequence is intentional. Movement prep primes joints, patterns, and the nervous system. Explosive work follows while output is highest. Strength builds while capacity remains. Conditioning finishes the session with purpose.
Dynamic warm-up, mobility, and corrective drills that prepare the body to train at full capacity. Every session opens with MVT, building joint health, movement quality, and the foundational patterns that make everything else safer and more effective.
Explosive movements, jumps, throws, sprints, performed when the nervous system is fully fresh. Short sets, full rest, maximum intent. This is how athletes develop speed and explosiveness that transfers to sport.
Primary compound lifts trained with progressive overload across three 4-week blocks. Deadlifts, squats, presses, rows, the foundational movements that build durable, athletic strength and muscle. Movements evolve each block; the demand always increases.
Conditioning, coordination, and movement efficiency developed through EMOMs, AMRAPs, and timed pieces. Challenging but sustainable, the kind of fitness that shows up in sport, not just the gym.
Performance is built through consistency. Every training variable, sets, reps, load, rest, progressive overload, only works if the athlete shows up to do the work. A perfectly written program delivers nothing to an athlete who misses sessions. Conversely, an athlete who shows up consistently, even on the days they don't feel like it, will outperform a more talented athlete who doesn't. This is one of the most important lessons sport can teach a young person.
From a physiological standpoint, adaptation is cumulative. The body responds to repeated stress over time, not to occasional bursts of effort. This program is built on that principle: the same movements, repeated and progressively loaded across four weeks, then evolved into new variations for the next block. Missing sessions doesn't just cost a workout, it breaks the progressive overload that drives strength, muscle, and performance. The program works. But only if you do.
Beyond the physical, there is something deeply formative about learning to honor a commitment to yourself. Athletes who train consistently develop a relationship with discipline that has nothing to do with motivation, motivation fluctuates, discipline doesn't. A 15–18 year old who learns to show up when they don't feel like it is developing a skill that will serve them their entire lives. Beyond health and fitness, this is perhaps the greatest real long-term return on this program.
Each session runs approximately 60–90 minutes. Four sessions per week. Show up for all of them.
Three 4-week blocks. Each block keeps the same MVT → PWR → STR → SKL structure, movements are progressively loaded for four weeks, then evolved into variations for the next block. Four training days per week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Every session follows the same structure: MVT → PWR → STR → SKL. The movements below are trained for the first four weeks, adding reps or load each week, then evolved into variations for Blocks 2 and 3.
Every athlete is assessed at Week 1 and retested at Week 12. This isn't about where you start, it's about the distance traveled.
| Baseline: Pre & Post |
|---|
| Broad Jump |
| Vertical Jump (Box Jump) |
| 60m Sprint |
| Max Strict Pull-up |
| AMRAP 3 Min: Burpees |
| Rear Elevated Split Squat |
| Max Back Squat |
| Max Trap Bar Deadlift |
| Max Bench Press (any variation) |
Every skill is rated on a 3-level scale at pre and post assessment. Progress through the levels, not reaching Level 3, is the goal.
A quick reference for parents and athletes who are new to structured strength and conditioning.
The practice of deliberately structuring training into phases over time, each with a different focus, movement selection, and loading progression. This program uses a block periodization model: the same core movements are trained for four weeks with increasing reps or load (progressive overload), then replaced with variations in the next block. The structure, MVT, PWR, STR, SKL, stays the same across all three blocks. This approach builds fitness systematically, prevents plateaus, and teaches athletes that improvement is a process, not an event.
The foundational principle behind all strength and performance gains. Progressive overload means gradually increasing the demand placed on the body over time, by adding weight, reps, sets, or reducing rest. The body adapts to stress: give it the same stimulus repeatedly and it stops improving. Give it slightly more each week and it keeps getting stronger. In this program, progressive overload is built into each 4-week block, athletes add load or reps to the same movements week over week before the block shifts to new variations. It's not complicated, but it requires showing up consistently and tracking your work.
The scientific term for muscle growth. Hypertrophy occurs when muscle fibers are stressed through training and repair and grow back slightly larger during recovery. It requires sufficient training volume, progressive overload, adequate protein, and, critically for teenagers, enough sleep.
The two phases of every strength movement. The concentric phase is the lifting phase, muscle shortens under load (e.g. standing up from a squat, pressing a bar overhead). The eccentric phase is the lowering phase, muscle lengthens under load (e.g. lowering into a squat, lowering the bar back to your chest). The eccentric phase is where the majority of muscle damage, and therefore growth stimulus, occurs. Controlling the eccentric deliberately (3–4 seconds down) is one of the most effective techniques for building strength and muscle, and a core principle in this program.
A 1–10 scale describing how hard a set feels. RPE 8 = challenging but 2 reps still possible. RPE 10 = absolute maximum. Using RPE instead of fixed percentages allows the program to auto-regulate based on how the athlete feels each day, especially important for developing athletes whose recovery varies week to week.
The maximum weight an athlete can lift for a single repetition. In this program, 1RM is almost always calculated rather than tested directly, an athlete lifts a challenging weight for 3–5 reps and a formula estimates their max. Safe, and still gives a meaningful number to track over time.
A high-intensity workout designed to challenge the cardiovascular and energy systems, combining multiple movements performed for time or rounds. In this program, metcons are part of the Skill/Endurance pillar, often scored, competitive, and "fun". They develop work capacity and mental toughness that strength training alone cannot.
A training approach that combines multiple physical qualities, strength, power, and conditioning, within a single session rather than isolating one quality per workout. Instead of a pure lifting day or a pure cardio day, each session develops the athlete across all dimensions. This is the foundation of how T2P is structured: every session moves through MVT, PWR, STR, and SKL, so athletes build explosive power, functional strength, and conditioning simultaneously. Mixed modal training mirrors the demands of real sport, where athletes rarely need just one physical quality at a time.
Three distinct training approaches, each with a different goal, rep range, and outcome. This program uses all three, sequenced deliberately across blocks.
| Hypertrophy | Strength Training | Functional Fitness | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Build muscle size | Maximize force output | Work capacity & athleticism |
| Rep Range | 8–12 reps | 1–6 reps | Varies, often high rep or timed |
| Load | Moderate (70–80%) | Heavy (80–95%) | Light to moderate |
| Rest | 60–90 seconds | 2–5 minutes | Minimal, intensity is the point |
| Result | More muscle mass | More force & power | Better conditioning & movement |
| In This Program | All Blocks (STR) | All Blocks (PWR) | All Blocks (SKL) |
Compound exercises involve multiple joints and muscle groups (squats, deadlifts, bench press, pull-ups, rows). They build functional strength and form the foundation of every session in this program.
Isolation exercises target a single muscle group, curls, lateral raises, flyes. They have their place filling gaps, but should never be the foundation of a young athlete's training. In this program: accessories, not anchors.
Sport has shaped a great deal about how I think, move, and show up in the world. Today, my arena is functional fitness and competitive CrossFit, and I've earned my place in it, ranking in the top 1% worldwide in the CrossFit Open for my age group multiple times and placing highly across a number of well-regarded global competitions.
But the experience that has shaped my coaching most wasn't a podium finish. It was a serious shoulder injury requiring surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, labrum, and bicep, followed by the long, humbling road of recovery and rehabilitation. Getting through that process took as much discipline and determination as any competition I've entered, and coming out the other side gave me a deep, firsthand understanding of what it actually takes to rebuild the body correctly, and what it means to come back better than ever.
I am excited to coach teenage athletes because I genuinely love this age group. 15–18 is one of the most exciting windows of athletic development in their lives, motivated, competitive, and capable of making real progress when guided well.
My program is built around two goals: building athletic muscle and developing genuine performance. Every session follows the same four-pillar structure, MVT, PWR, STR, SKL, in that order, every time. Movement prep primes the body, power work happens when the nervous system is freshest, strength builds the foundation, and conditioning finishes with purpose. Each block holds that structure for four weeks, progressively loading the same movements before evolving them in the next block. Every session has a purpose. Every block builds on the last. Every athlete learns to train with intention, not just effort.
What most young athletes are missing is a coach who meets them where they are, builds their confidence through proper movement, and gives them a framework that serves them for decades, not just a season.
Whether your teenager is chasing their first pull-up or their first podium, I want to help them get there, safely, progressively, and with the kind of coaching that sticks with them long after our sessions end.
"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."/ Bob Marley
Heavy, hard-hitting, and gritty. Dark production, aggressive rap, hard rock, and metal, the kind of music that makes a heavy set feel lighter. Built for strength work, compound lifts, and grinding through resistance.
Open STR PlaylistExplosive, anthemic, and high-energy. Big drops, driving tempo, and roof-raising hooks, the kind of music that makes you move faster without thinking about it. Built for sprints, plyometrics, and any training that demands maximum effort.
Open PWR PlaylistGroovy, rhythmic, and technically smooth. R&B, pop, and mid-tempo hip-hop that keeps energy steady without spiking adrenaline. Built for skill work, conditioning pieces, coordination drills, and flow state training.
Open SKL Playlist