The Best Program Ever

Author

Tim Cortazzo
July 02, 2024

23 years old, absolutely 0 idea of what I was doing. We had very little equipment at that time. 1 rack, 2 barbells, a rack of dumbbells that were supposed to go to 50s, but the 40s and 50s were broken.

My athletes thought I was a genius…

But guess what? Our athletes (all 6 of them) and their parents BELIEVED that our program at FSQ Sports Training was the key to future success. They felt that our program was the best program ever. The same kids showed up day after day, week after week, year after year. Our original group of athletes were in Middle School at that time. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. trained with us religiously until they graduated college. Some of those guys are now married, and I still have great relationships with all of them. We hashtag #FSQfamily on all of our social media posts. Those guys are my family.

I used to be embarrassed by the training session in the picture above. Now, I am proud of it. It’s proof that I got better. It’s proof that I really care. I demand my athletes to find ways to make improvements. Well if you give a damn at all about them, you should improve too! Every single time I write a program, I feel like it’s the best program ever.. Until I write the next one.. and the next one.. and the next one…

And here’s the thing... You can go to every performance conference out there. You can follow world-renowned coaches word for word or you can debate them to try to prove your own worth. You can back squat, front squat, goblet squat, or not squat at all. At the end of the day, IT DOES NOT MATTER ALL THAT MUCH, as long as you are getting your athletes real results. What matters most is that your athletes love training with you. And they show up consistently because they love the results they are getting. They love how they feel and they love how they are progressing and ultimately performing.

So, if you are searching for the best program ever.. Stop searching.. You will never find it. And in the process you will drive yourself insane, wondering if you are good enough. DO THIS INSTEAD:

  • Start with writing a program that you think would work well. Keep in mind that Productivity > Difficulty. Do not worry too much about the set & rep scheme at the moment. Focus on exercises. Also understand who you are writing the program for. Is it a big group or 1-on-1? How long has this athlete been training? Injury History? Equipment? Time Constraints? All of these variables are important to consider.

  • Listen to coaches who have done it, try things that those coaches are doing. But try them out yourself first. Make sure you can demonstrate and explain what you want your athletes to do. Keep it simple!

  • Become savagely good at teaching the most basic exercises possible.

  • Track everything that you do, find correlations between your program and improved performance. Make improvements based on those observations.

  • Keep things that you think work well, and scrap the stuff that you hate. Build your foundation with the things that work well.

  • Do more things that your athletes love. Give them some ownership of their own program. If someone hates back squatting, try something else! If they want to play Sharks & Minnows at the end of a speed session, lets do it! Have fun. Now, it does not always need to be sunshine & rainbows, training needs to be tough at times to make progress. But Fun leads to consistent training, consistent training leads to development, development leads to better and more confident athletes, better athletes leads to winning, winning is fun.

  • Most importantly, never risk someones health for your own stupid agenda. It’s about the athletes, not about you.

Remember, great training programs are only great IF you can organize the flow, implement the protocol, teach the exercises, and have your athletes safely execute the exercises progressively with high effort.. AND you have to do all of those things with levels of consistency that most can not comprehend.

If you can get your athletes to believe in what you do and show up willing to work, then you already have the best program ever.

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NEXT WEEK… I will be revealing my first ever online course with early access and a huge discount to all subscribers. PLUS, I am working on some really cool projects that I will be sharing for 100% FREE, exclusively for my early subscribers. Excited to share it all with you guys.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Talk soon,

Tim

The world of Sports Performance can be overwhelming. My goal is to help change that with REAL, PRACTICAL, APPLICABLE, SIMPLE training solutions to help athletes run faster, jump higher, get stronger, and be an absolute menace in their sport.

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