Programming Mastery #2: Exercise Selection
#70 - Strength & Speed Coaching - Pursuing Your Best ⚡️
Great programming doesn’t start with percentages, cool variations, or what’s trending online.
It starts with choosing the right movements — movements you can teach, scale, and repeat inside the school day.
Exercise Selection is where your system starts to take shape.
You don’t need 200 exercises.
You don’t need a giant library.
You don’t need perfect equipment.
You need movements that transfer, movements that fit your room, and movements your students can get better at over time.
In Part 2 of our Programming Mastery Series, we’re building a simple, repeatable approach to Exercise Selection — one you can trust across classes, seasons, semesters, and years.
This is the part most coaches overcomplicate. Today, we’re going to make it simple.
Why Exercise Selection Matters
Needs Analysis (Part 1) tells you who you’re building for.
Exercise Selection determines how you’ll build.
When your exercise selection is clear:
Your teaching improves.
Your room flows.
Your progressions make sense.
Your athletes get better faster.
When it’s unclear:
You chase variety instead of mastery.
You add movements to fill space, not solve problems.
Your classes slow down.
Your system falls apart.
High school Strength & Speed requires fewer, better movements — done well, done consistently, and done with purpose.
Your program isn’t what you write on paper.
Your program is what you can teach in real time.
The 3 Filters Every Movement Must Pass
Every exercise you choose should pass three tests.
If it doesn’t?
It doesn’t belong in your program.
1. Does It Transfer?
Does the movement make your athletes:
faster
stronger
more explosive
more stable
more coordinated
better movers?
Or does it just look good?
Transfer beats novelty every time.
A movement earns its place if it improves something that matters.
2. Can You Teach It Well?
High school Strength & Speed is a teaching job first.
Ask yourself:
Can I teach this in 30 seconds?
Can 35 kids do it safely under supervision?
Can my student at each rack cue it correctly?
Does it fit in a class with beginners?
If you can’t teach it quickly, effectively, and repeatedly, it doesn’t matter how “good” the movement is.
It won’t land.
3. Can It Scale Across Training Ages?
A great movement works for:
freshmen
seniors
in-season athletes
off-season athletes
beginners
advanced kids
All within the same structure.
You scale through:
range
tempo
load
height
distance
volume
intent
Not through brand-new variations every week.
If a movement can’t scale, it can’t serve your room.
The Movement Categories That Drive Our System
These categories give structure to everything you do.
Here’s how we think about each one.
1. Explosive Movements (Jump / Throw / Bound)
Purpose: Teach force production, landing, timing, and coordination.
Why we use them:
Low equipment needs
High transfer
Easy to scale
Great for movement literacy
Great for athleticism development
These include:
Box jumps
Repeat jumps
Approach jumps
Broad jumps
Med ball throws (rotational, overhead, scoop)
In our system, normally explosiveness comes before load.
2. Speed Exposure
Purpose: Sprint mechanically sound with intent.
Our staples:
Timed acceleration
Timed max velocity
Prowler pushes
Shredmill
Chases & races
Change of direction
Agility
Games
Speed belongs in every program — weekly, year-round.
3. Olympic Lift Variations
Purpose: Develop timing, explosiveness, coordination, and bar awareness.
Why Olympic variations? They:
Scale well.
Transfers to sport.
Build athleticism.
Reward consistency.
We progress through:
Position → Speed → Load
You don’t need to hit every variation in the book.
First, master one lift and its teaching points.
4. Squat Patterns
Purpose: Lower-body strength, control, and sport-specific positions.
During class we emphasize:
Single-leg squats
Lunge variations
Split squats
Why single-leg?
Safer with large classes
Easier to teach
More athletic
More transferable
Harder to cheat
Easy to scale
Single-leg patterns show up across every cycle.
5. Hinge Patterns
Purpose: Posterior chain strength, hip stability, and power.
We use:
SL RDL
Kickstand RDL
Deadlift
Hamstring variations
Why?
They build strong hips without beating kids up.
And everyone needs more posterior chain strength.
6. Upper Body Push
Purpose: Horizontal / vertical pressing strength.
Our staples:
Bench press
DB incline
Weighted push up
Shoulder press
Why these?
Easy to teach.
Easy to scale.
Fits in racks.
Fits in timing constraints.
7. Upper Body Pull
Purpose: Back strength, posture, shoulder health.
Our staples:
Row variations (board, chest supported, DB)
Pull up variations
Banded pull variations
We don’t chase “back day.”
We chase postural balance and pulling power.
8. Core / Trunk Integrity
Purpose: Transfer force without losing shape.
Our staples:
Plank variations
Ab wheel
PB stir the pot
PB saw
Pallof variations
You don’t need 50 core variations.
You need consistency in the right ones.
What We Avoid (and Why)
Avoiding the wrong movements is just as important as selecting the right ones.
We avoid:
Movements too complex for beginners
Movements that slow the room down
Movements that require too much individual coaching
Movements that promote sloppy patterns
Movements that don’t scale
Movements chosen for novelty instead of purpose
Simple doesn’t mean easy.
Simple means teachable, repeatable, scalable.
Building Your Exercise Menu
Your Exercise Menu is the backbone of your programming system.
It’s not your workout.
It’s your playbook.
Your menu should fit:
your teaching bandwidth
your room flow
your schedule
your seasonal demands
every athlete in the room
How to build it:
Choose 3–5 movements per category
Make them teachable
Make them progressable
Make them repeatable
Write cues for each
Commit to them for an entire cycle
In Part 3, we’ll take this further and show how to balance the week using these categories.
And for paid subscribers:
Next week we’ll build the full Exercise Menu Template — category by category, with clean, school-specific examples you can plug directly into your program.
Exercise Selection Takeaway
Exercise selection isn’t about what you like.
It’s about what works.
If the movement:
transfers
is teachable
and scales
…it earns a place in your system.
If it slows the room down, confuses the kids, or looks good on paper but falls apart in practice — it doesn’t belong.
Programs built on preference fall apart.
Programs built on systems last.
Your Exercise Menu is a core part of that system.
Next Up
Programming Mastery #3 — Balancing the Week
We’ll look at how to structure training days in a way that:
Keeps athletes progressing
Respects time constraints
Supports in-season athletes
Reinforces your program outcomes
And ties your entire system together
Need Help Building Your System?
If you’re ready to strengthen the structure of your Strength & Speed program — or redesign how it fits inside the school day — I can help.
Pursuit PE Consulting offers on-site and virtual support for:
Class-based Strength & Speed
School-wide systems
Data & tracking
Program design
Coaching workflow
“Average coaches have quotes.
Good coaches have a plan.
Elite coaches have a system.”
- Tim Kight
Let’s build yours.
Reply to this email or message me directly.
Keep pursuing excellence,
Preston ⚡️