Blog | Training When To Go Hard & When To Hold Back

Author / David McKercher

3 - 5 minutes read

Why Sequencing Training Stress is Key to Long-Term Athletic Development

Training is a form of stress, whether it’s squatting, jumping, or sprinting. The body perceives these activities as physical stressors, which prompt an adaptive response through supercompensation. When the body is exposed to a physical challenge, it recovers by improving its capacity, gearing up for the next bout of stress. A skilled coach knows how to progressively increase the training stress, ensuring that the body adapts over time without being overwhelmed. This steady progression is key to building long-term athletic success.

The Athlete Lifecycle and Stress Application

Proper sequencing of stress is the cornerstone of long-term athletic development (LTAD), guiding athletes from childhood through peak competitive years and into lifelong physical activity. Stress should be applied progressively to match an athlete’s physical, neurological, and psychological development. A failure to respect this principle can lead to overtraining, injury, and missed growth opportunities. In the early stages, it’s critical to build the foundational traits in the right order, starting with flexibility and mobility, then progressing through stability, strength, power, and speed.

The Performance Hierarchy

Athletic development follows a clear hierarchy, with each performance trait building on the previous one. Here’s how it breaks down:

Mobility and Flexibility: The foundation of access to positions. Without it, athletes cannot properly engage or move through certain positions.
Stability: Once access is gained, stability ensures control within those positions. Stability is the ability to resist external forces, such as during a squat or in athletic movements.
Strength: The ability to exert force against resistance. Strength forms the base of all higher-level performance traits, enabling athletes to handle greater power and speed.
Power: The ability to express strength rapidly. Power translates into explosive movements like jumps, sprints, and Olympic lifts.
Speed: The culmination of all previous traits, enabling athletes to move rapidly through space. Speed depends on the ability to generate and apply force quickly, which is impacted by strength, power, and reaction forces.

Each performance trait must be developed sequentially. Skipping steps or rushing to develop power without a solid strength base will lead to inefficiencies and higher injury risks. The goal is to ensure that every stage of development is built on a solid foundation, with the end result being the best possible expression of athletic ability.

Progressive Overload, Supercompensation, and Periodization

Progressive overload involves gradually increasing the intensity, volume, or complexity of training. This fosters adaptation while ensuring continued progress. The key to successful overload is applying the right amount of stress to promote supercompensation—a process where the body recovers beyond its prior capacity, preparing for the next round of training stress. However, applying too much or too little stress can disrupt this cycle, leading to stagnation or overtraining. This is where periodization comes in—strategically dividing training into phases that match the athlete’s development stage ensures optimal results. It’s like PEMDAS for training: applying the right stress at the right time to maximize performance.

Maximize Your Progress with a Proven Training System

To truly unlock your potential and ensure that your training adheres to the principles of progressive overload and periodization, all of the Power Athlete training programs are designed with your long-term development in mind. Whether you’re an aspiring athlete or a seasoned competitor, each program provides a structured approach to training, helping you build strength, power, and speed in the right order. Explore the training programs today and start your journey toward better, smarter training.

David McKercher

Power Athlete Block One Coach David Mckercher has been the owner of Train608 in Waunakee, Wisconsin since 2017. Train608 provides athletes aged 9-20+ with on-site and virtual training, coaching, and programming. Paired with a former career in teh culinary arts, Train608 presents a unique approach to developing young people and athletes. That philosophy includes a combination of strength & conditioning, nutritional guidance, and presenting athletes with numerous daily opportunities to develop leadership, responsibility, and accountability. David has worked with teams and individual athletes from across the spectrum since 2010. He has been fortunate enough to work with the 2015 DII national champion Wisconsin Women's Rugby Football Club, individual athletes from the Team USA CXC, and numerous other professional, D1, D2, D3 athletes. Top among those achievements, however, is the ability day in and day out to provide young people with motivation, inspiration, and opportunities to take control of the inevitable failures and successes of their lives so they can be as strong and resilient as possible. Father, partner, never afraid to be inspired, David currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin with his partner of 10 years Lisa and their two dogs Jake & Ragnar.