Coaches constantly say they want athletes to jump higher, sprint faster and become more explosive.

The problem?

Many athletes are trying to produce Ferrari outputs with Vespa engines.

As we approach the summer months, many of our varsity athletes have returned home for another busy off-season. A time to restabilize routine, refuel, rehydrate, reduce stress and HAMMER consistent training. It’s no surprise we’ve coined this off-season “Summer Dawgs”. Yes, we have a picture of Fisher on the tees. It’s quite a sight.

When athletes return home, it gives us a unique opportunity to evaluate with a fresh mind. We reflect on the previous season, what went well, what could improve and ultimately lay out a game plan to attack the next level. We also get feedback from coaches on what they want to see from their athletes when they return to campus in the fall.

Naturally, there are lofty ambitions for their physicality.

While every athlete has unique goals, we continue to see a common theme… and a common pitfall. Coaches want athletes to become faster, more powerful and physically capable of dominating at a higher level. Simple enough in theory. The real question becomes:

“What does that actually look like for THIS athlete, and how do we bridge the gap from where they currently are?”

This is where we start piecing the puzzle together.

We’re now roughly three weeks into Summer Dawgs and we’ve seen a recurring trend. Jump higher. Sprint faster. Get stronger. All common goals. Many would assume the answer is simply adding more jumps, more sprint work and more explosive training. After all, we need to train fast to become fast… right?

While there is truth to that, we’re noticing a common issue with many returning varsity athletes:

They are undersized for the level they are competing against (or striving to compete against).

Strong is a relative term. Most people compare strength to a barbell. In reality, strength should be compared to opponents.

When we analyze data, we begin building a clearer picture of what top competitors actually look like. Their relative archetypes, outputs and body composition all provide perspective on what may matter at higher levels of play. Elite athletes tend to produce higher outputs, faster, and more repeatedly than their opponents. Not exactly groundbreaking.

But what often gets overlooked is the engine underneath it all.

Many of these athletes simply possess more usable mass and greater force-producing capability. They have bigger engines.

This isn’t about mindlessly gaining bodyweight. It’s about building usable tissue capable of producing and tolerating higher outputs.

As mentioned earlier, many coaches instinctively lean toward adding more explosive or speed-driven training. At certain points in the off-season, however, that may not be the best course of action. While we may improve an athlete’s ability to produce force quickly (and optimize their skill expression) there simply may not be enough force-producing capacity there yet.

Think of it this way.

If you crank the throttle on a motorscooter, you can only go so fast. Even if you rip the throttle as aggressively as possible, the engine only has so much horsepower to give.

Now compare that to slamming the pedal in a Ferrari.

The Ferrari possesses the capacity to produce significantly greater horsepower at dramatically higher rates.

If undersized athletes only focus on explosive or speed-type training, they eventually begin bashing their heads against a hypothetical ceiling. At some point, we need to spend time building a bigger engine first. Then we can learn how to drive it.

What really triggered this thought process for me was analyzing one of our athletes from the previous summer. She finished last off-season around 158 pounds while producing roughly 43 watts/kg peak power output. Upon returning this summer, she had lost approximately 8 pounds and her output had dropped nearly 25%.

So naturally, I began assessing the others.

What we found was a common trend. Many athletes had lost size, were undersized relative to their competition, or lacked the physical capacity necessary to express higher outputs consistently. When compared to opponents competing at higher levels — even athletes of similar height and age — the gap became obvious.

So we decided to attack it head on.

In only three weeks, many athletes have gained anywhere from 4–10 pounds of body mass. Based on bioelectrical impedance scans, those increases are heavily skewed toward lean tissue, with several athletes simultaneously reducing fat mass in the process.

On top of that, many athletes have already improved relative power outputs by roughly 2–5% while reducing sprint times by 3–5%.

What’s even more interesting?

NONE of these athletes have performed dedicated jump training, sprint training or plyometric work in their programs yet.

While these are still very early findings, they reinforce that we are moving in the right direction. We need time spent building lean tissue, exposing athletes to higher loading strategies and increasing their overall capacity for force expression.

The beauty of the summer off-season is that we have the flexibility to dose these intensities appropriately while ensuring athletes can recover well enough to repeat quality efforts consistently. This creates a long runway for our Summer Dawgs to continue building capability before refining and expressing those qualities at higher velocities later in the off-season.

In the early stages of development, the goal isn’t simply to move faster.

The goal is to become more capable.

Greater lean tissue creates higher ceilings for force expression, power output and athletic potential.

Eventually, we’ll hammer the throttle.

But first?

We get under the hood and start building the engine.

Matrixx Ferreira