I'm going to outline my go to programming strategy I've used for years now to get my athletes stronger - fast!

I'm a big believer that we want to prioritize getting strong first. I have certain benchmarks I want to hit on the big lifts for my high school athletes. This system has allowed hundreds of my athletes over the years to become extremely strong. Ultimately, this is not the end goal - the goal is for them to excel at their sport. By getting really strong first, we built a foundational capacity to become really powerful and explosive at their sport in the long run.

How It Works

• There's two different levels of loading with the stage system. You're going to perform your heavier sets first, and then your lighter sets second. The way I frame it to my athletes is: "We are going to lift heavy first, and then still heavy but not quite as heavy."
• Why? PAP (Post-Activation Potentiation). Essentially, your heavy sets will make your lighter sets more effective. The heavy work recruits your highest-threshold motor units. Think of your central nervous system like the lights in a big gymnasium. Sometimes it takes a while for them to be get fully on and fired up. By performing a couple of heavy sets first, your CNS (and type-ii muscle fibres) are fully primed to work, making your submaximal sets more effective.
• Additionally, research has shown that the max strength work first will actually make your individual muscle fibres more sensitive to calcium. (Your muscle fibres have something called myosin-actin cross-bridges that utilize calcium in order to contract)
• Traditionally, PAP is utilized for speed and power development. An athlete will do a heavy squat and then follow it with a vertical jump in order to maximize explosive development. However, PAP can be utilized to build sub-maximal strength, too! I've been using it with great results for over ten years.

Guidelines

• I only utilize the Stage System for the major lifts like: squats, deadlifts, bench press, and pull ups.
• You can get a little creative, but this is a general 4-week template I like to use:
  • Week 1: 2x3, 2x5
  • Week 2: 2x3, 2x5
  • Week 3: 3x2, 1x8
  • Week 4: 3x4 (slight deload)
• Why this system is so great is it allows us to attack two different 'types' of strength. Athletes have to earn the right to go heavier, and so maybe week over week your eyes tell you that we aren't going to go up on the top sets - but we make some really good progress on the submaximal range!
• Picking your weights is a little bit of an art form, so I'd start here. Your sets of 5 should be around 80-85 % of your top sets. Let's say you have a 16 year old who does 400x3 on the trap bar for 2 sets. I'd have him do 2x5 with 330. As always, we want to be in a spot with 1-2 reps in reserve. Training too close to failure is a recipe for technique breakdown and injury which can never happen in the weight room.

Additional Notes

• One of the secondary reasons the stage system works so well for early-intermediate lifters is it requires more warm-up sets. You need to hold your athletes to a high standard of treating their warm-up sets like top sets so they can accumulate more volume with good technique. In the long-run, proficient technique becomes more and more important in order to continue to lifting more weight.
• As far as rest goes, we want to take 2-3 minutes in between sets in order to allow full recovery. A good rule of thumb I use is, "Give yourself a couple minutes, once you feel ready to hit it - rest an additional 30 seconds" This extra 30 seconds ensures our CNS is fully recovered!