Overcoming Common Scheduling Roadblocks in Your Strength & Speed Program
#3 - Strength & Speed Coaching - Pursuing Your Best ⚡️
Hey everyone, Preston here—welcome back to Pursuit PE! If you caught last week’s issue, you know we’ve been talking about how to integrate year-round Strength & Speed programs within the school day. Today, as promised, we’re tackling a major headache for many PE coaches and teachers: Scheduling/Programming Roadblocks.
From cramped facilities to multi-sport athlete conflicts, these obstacles can derail even the best-designed training plan. The good news? With a bit of strategic thinking, you can overcome them—and keep your students on track for real results over their four years of high school.
1. Cramped Facilities
The Reality
Many high school weight rooms are designed for far fewer students than we actually teach. If you have ever seen our weight room at Mount Vernon you probably know that it gets pretty cramped. We have capped our class sizes at 36 and it forces us to be very efficient with our spacing and timing.
The Fix (There are so many awesome solutions–here are a couple simple ones)
Station-Based Rotations: Split the class into 3–4 smaller groups. One station might focus on the main lift, another on the secondary lift, and a third station on skill-based drills, plyometrics or core. After 5–10 minutes, rotate. This works really well if your weight room has a rack area, dumbbell area, and an open area.
Rack Station: At Mount Vernon our weight room is small, but over the years we have been able to equip it well. The goal has been to allow students to stay at their Rack Station. This makes us more efficient because there are less bottlenecks, and improved safety because our kids don’t have to ‘travel” as much. The tough part is having enough equipment at each station. It’s been a process but well worth it.
Coach’s Corner
If you would like to learn more about efficiency in PE strength & speed, check out this Big Time Strength Podcast episode with Amber Burson. She is one of the best strength coaches around and I learned so much from her.
BTS #168: Amber Burson - Time-Efficient Strategies for Maximizing Effectiveness in the Phys Ed S&C Classroom
2. Balancing Multi-Sport Athletes
The Reality
Some students juggle football, track, baseball, and an after-school job. Others are part of volleyball, basketball, softball and club sports. No matter the situation, all students need consistent training without burning out or conflicting with practices.
The Fix
In-School Training as “Home Base”: Make your school-day Strength & Speed session the central workout. Then treat after-school lifts as part B, extra, optional or skill-specific for those who need/want the additional work.
Communication: If students and athletes don’t know their options to get better then it is hard for them to be the best they can be. It is important to formalize a system for students to be able to follow.
Coach’s Corner
Once our multi-sport kids started viewing the in-school session as their ‘official lift time,’ we cut down on overtraining and injuries. Before school, after school, and team lifts can still be used, but now their purpose is a little different.
3. Scheduling & Time Constraints
The Reality
Between class bells, assemblies, and random half-days, it can feel impossible to plan a consistent routine. There have been plenty of times our original plan got wrecked by an incredibly wild schedule.
The Fix
Micro-Sessions: Break training into smaller blocks of training (you can see an example linked below). This ensures each component gets some attention, even on shortened class days. You can also easily and readily prioritize the things that are needed even in a weird schedule situation.
Weekly View: Instead of planning day-by-day, map out a Monday–Friday overview. If Wednesday is a half-day, plug in some things that don’t take as much time but are still important. Things like leadership training, nutrition curriculum, make-up workouts, or just good old fashioned PE games (who doesn’t like to just have a day to have fun?).
Coach’s Corner
When I switched to a weekly overview system, I stopped panicking every time a schedule change popped up. We’d just prioritized the most important “blocks”—and little or no progress was lost.
4. Quick Bonus: Data Tracking
Even if your schedule is rock solid, students’ readiness can change overnight. Consider a quick daily or weekly readiness survey (physical or digital) to gauge fatigue levels. If half the class is running on 4 hours of sleep after a big exam, pivot to mobility or lighter technique work rather than more intense training.
Or better yet, design your program to account for the variety of student fatigue levels that will enter the room each day. This is something we will dive into in the future.
Share & Succeed Together
Have a colleague wrestling with these same scheduling headaches? Forward this email or tag them on social media. The more we collaborate, the stronger our Strength & Speed programs become. And if you have a tip of your own, reply here—I’d love to highlight coach-driven solutions in a future issue.
Quick-Hit Recap
Station-Based Rotations for cramped facilities
In-School Training as “home base” for multi-sport kids
Micro-Sessions for random half-days and assemblies
Weekly Block View to flex around mid-week disruptions
Readiness Surveys to adapt sessions on the fly
Let me know which strategy resonates with you most—or which one you plan to implement first!
Grab Your Weekly Class Schedule Template
Ready to put these strategies into action?
We created a Weekly Class Schedule Template—a simple, grid-based planner to help you conceptualize how we map out our lessons. Ours breaks down the schedule right down to the minute!
Up Next…
We’ve got another newsletter dropping this Friday—but here’s the twist: Friday’s newsletter will be our first paid edition. Don’t worry—our free weekly content isn’t going anywhere; the paid editions will just dig deeper, provide advanced resources, and offer exclusive templates for those ready to take the next step.
Stay tuned, and as always, keep pursuing excellence in your PE program!
– Preston⚡️