The System: Soviet Periodization Adapted for the American Strength Coach

Despite a seemingly endless supply of training programs promising enhanced athletic performance, the same questions inevitably plague strength and conditioning coaches. How do you initiate an athlete’s strength program and progress it over the course of not just a season, but a career? How will you know when it is time to progress, and how can you avoid the consequences of overtraining? How can you develop an athlete’s work capacity while increasing strength, power, and speed without completely sacrificing one quality for another?

The answer to all of those questions lies in the systematic approach to program design outlined in The System.

Hall of Fame strength coaches Johnny Parker, Al Miller, and Rob Panariello have spent their entire careers studying, testing, and refining the best practices and methods of Soviet-era sports science into a modern, practical approach to strength and conditioning for long-term athletic development. Their system of scientific programming and coaching produced not only powerful and resilient athletes, but also dominant championship teams spanning over three decades.

Their distilled lessons and experiences will teach you:

~ A structured approach to advance a novice athlete to a stronger and more powerful performer

~ Why simplicity in exercise selection is one key to athletic development

~ The critical training variables that can make or break progress

~ How planned—not random—variations in training will yield progressive and sustained physical gains

~ How to integrate lifting, running, and jumping together to build explosive athletes

This book provides more than just a system of principles for optimal strength and conditioning program design. Rather, it provides an education in both the science and the art of coaching and will help you develop what the authors call the “Eye of the Coach” to ensure continued success for both you and your athletes.