You are slower out of the first step
Assess acceleration, force and technique before setting the next block.
The performance practice
Every gain,measured.
Measure strength, speed, endurance, composition, recovery and mobility. Your results guide the training load.
The six pillars
What we measure, what we train.
Measurement definitions: ground-contact time, running & cycling economy and morning readiness score.
01
Speed
Assess acceleration and top speed to set the next training priority.
How fast you get to top speed, and how long you hold it.
Speed is measured at the ground, where acceleration is produced.
10 / 20 / 30 m splitsGround-contact timeHorizontal force–velocity profileFlying-30 max velocity
02
Strength & power
Assess force and power in the positions your sport requires.
Not what you can lift. What you can use.
Force–velocity profileRate of force developmentIsometric mid-thigh pullLeft–right asymmetry
03
Endurance
Use thresholds and economy to guide conditioning for your event.
The engine, and the cost of running it.
Same VO₂max, very different days: thresholds and economy shape how well you hold pace late on.
VO₂maxLactate / ventilatory thresholdsRunning & cycling economyRepeat-effort decrement
04
Body composition
Review lean mass, fat mass and bone density alongside your goal.
Weight is noise. Composition is signal.
By DXA or a calibrated equivalent: how a physique photographs, a fighter makes weight, a body ages.
DXA lean & fat massRegional distributionBone mineral densityHydration & phase angle
05
Recovery
Read sleep, autonomic recovery and workload together before adjusting training.
What you can absorb decides what you can do.
No single measure determines the session.
HRV & resting HR trendSleep stages & efficiencySession RPE & load ratiosMorning readiness score
06
Mobility & resilience
Assess the range you control and use it to guide mobility and strength work.
Range you own, not range you borrow.
Measured under load, joint by joint.
Controlled articular rangeJoint-by-joint screenEccentric hamstring strengthLanding & deceleration quality
Sound familiar?
Six problems an assessmentcan clarify.
Measure the pattern, identify the relevant pillar and plan the next block.
You train hard and nothing moves
Review training targets, workload and recovery before adding more volume.
Your recovery takes an extra day
Review sleep, fuelling and workload together; refer persistent or concerning symptoms to your physician.
You fade in the last ten minutes
Review conditioning, workload, fuelling and recovery before choosing the next training priority.
Your injury keeps returning
Review recurrent injury with your medical team and agree appropriate testing and return criteria.
Tight, and stretching has not fixed it
Assess comfortable range and control; choose mobility work around the findings.
Explore training specialisms
Training specialisms
Training specialisms,from one coach.
One coach coordinates the work. See my qualifications.
Foundation
Maximal strength & powerlifting
Squat, hinge, press and pull, with loading guided by velocity data.
Explosiveness
Power & velocity-based training
Olympic-lift derivatives, ballistic and plyometric work, dosed by bar velocity and your force–velocity profile.
Locomotion
Speed & agility
Acceleration, top speed and change of direction: timed, filmed and modelled for track, court and pitch.
Engine
Energy-systems conditioning
Aerobic base, thresholds and repeat-sprint capacity, built from your own metabolic testing.
Physique
Hypertrophy & transformation
Preparation for stage, campaign and screen, with health markers reviewed throughout and clinical questions referred to your physician.
Resilience
Corrective exercise & return to sport
Dual NASM and ISSA corrective certification: training guided by assessment and return-to-play criteria agreed with the medical team.
Combat & duty
Tactical conditioning
Conditioning for combat sport and duty, selected where relevant to an eligible client or team engagement.
The long game
Masters & longevity strength
Strength and power training after forty, with attention to bone and tendon health.
Previous coaching experience
Clubs and squads work through a team partnership.
MMA & combat sportsCricketPowerliftingBodybuilding & physiqueTrack & fieldFootballTennisGolfBasketballTactical & militaryHybrid athletesEndurance sportExecutive performanceMasters athletesFilm & screen preparationRunway & campaign
Nutrition coaching
Compare nutrition plans, inclusions and fees in the nutrition rate card.
Performance nutrition
Fuelling periodised to your training, bloods and composition target; supplements only with a clear reason and current third-party batch-testing certification.
Sleep & recovery
Review sleep architecture, autonomic recovery and stress load. Plan travel routines before every long flight.
Habits that stick
Behaviour-change coaching (NASM Behavior Change Specialist, NBC-HWC) to build lasting routines.
Calm under pressure
Composure for the moments that decide a result: the IOC Certificate in Mental Health in Elite Sport and Harvard Medical School training in well-being and mindful leadership. Coaching, not therapy.
Stress, mood and wellbeing
If you raise stress, mood or a wellbeing concern, it is listened to and not treated. With your written consent it goes to your physician, or to a psychologist or psychiatrist you choose, and EVOX can write the summary for them. If you feel unsafe, call your local emergency number (112 in India). In India, Tele-MANAS (14416), the free mental-health helpline, is open 24 hours. Tele-MANAS: Ministry of Health announcement
Performance for life: keep it for decades
Performance for life
Keep it for decades.
Longer sporting careers
Manage load and protect speed throughout your sporting career.
Your decade-by-decade plan
Training targets for strength, power, VO₂max and composition at 40, 50, 60 and beyond, reviewed at every twelve-week re-test; blood results are reviewed with your physician.
Life after sport
Rebuilt after competition ends: new targets, the same instruments, the same coach.
Hormone health, with your physician
EVOX does not prescribe, recommend or source peptides, hormones or any prescription compound; a panel that raises a question goes to your physician, in writing.
Clean sport
Clean-sportboundaries.
A hard boundary. Read the clean-sport policy; see my anti-doping education and event experience.
- Your team doctor receives everything you authorise in writing; nothing goes around the medical staff.
- Strict liability applies: what enters the athlete’s body is the athlete’s responsibility.
Support at an event is not an appointment by its organising body.
Performance overview
Part II · Training methods
Every methodhas a reason.
Strength, muscle, speed and conditioning — programmed around your assessment, recovery and calendar.
I use periodisation, readiness, repetitions in reserve and bar speed to choose the work. We re-test at week twelve.
Explore periodisation structures
01 · Periodisation
The structure followsthe calendar.
Choose the structure by the job: build muscle, increase strength, develop power or maintain performance around an event. Training history, recovery and the calendar set the progression. Training evidence.
Linear
Load rises, volume falls: the simplest structure, right for a beginner or a first block after a layoff.
Undulating
Heavy, light and medium days in one week; one option for private clients and in-season athletes.
Block
One quality per block — accumulation, transmutation and realisation (general, specific and peaking blocks) — for a competition, a fight camp or a shoot date.
Conjugate
Maximal-effort, dynamic-effort and repetition work rotated through the week; for strength athletes and advanced physique clients.
Concurrent
Strength and endurance in one plan. Session spacing and workload follow the priority quality, especially when explosive performance matters. Training evidence.
Realisation & peaking
The last two to three weeks before the date that matters: volume cut sharply, intensity kept, freshness arriving.
Blocks run for twelve weeks or less, with key markers checked at week eight.
02 · Autoregulation
The plan bends.The principle does not.
I adjust the session to how you are recovering today.
- The readiness score sets the kind of day — push, maintain or repair — from sleep, HRV, load and how you feel. How a morning score is composed
- Repetitions in reserve. Most sets stop one to three short of failure; you report the honest number, the next set adjusts.
- Velocity-based training. Where velocity monitoring is used, the set stops at an agreed velocity loss (about 10–20% for speed or power, more for size). The velocity-loss evidence
- HRV-guided adjustment, with limits. HRV is one input alongside performance, recovery and how you feel, never the sole switch.
03 · The qualities
One toolkitper quality.
Every training choice has a test and a measure of progress.
Strength & power
Heavy lifting develops force; jumps, throws and fast lifts train how quickly it is expressed. The balance depends on your sport and starting point. Training evidence.
Speed & acceleration
Mechanics at full intent; horizontal force from resisted sprints and hills; maximal velocity year-round, where appropriate to the athlete and season. Splits at 10, 20 and 30 m and a flying 30 m find the limit.
Hypertrophy
Muscle growth needs repeated, progressive work for the target muscles. For bodybuilding and physique preparation, see Bodybuilding & physique. Sets, exercise choice and effort are adjusted together; progress and recovery determine whether to add work. Training evidence. Regional DXA adds body-composition context.
Endurance & conditioning
Measured thresholds set the balance of easy work and harder VO₂max intervals for your sport.
Mobility & resilience
Loaded mobility, eccentric strength and filmed landing mechanics, with weekly asymmetry checks.
Recovery
Recovery starts with sufficient food, fluid, sleep and time between hard sessions. Review soreness, fatigue and performance before adding a device or another session. Training evidence.
Explore the training-load demonstration
04 · Load
Numbers that describe.Not laws that predict.
Session RPE (your rating of perceived exertion, 1–10) times minutes is a day’s load; a week of them gives the acute load, its ratio to the longer average, monotony and strain.
The acute:chronic ratio’s ‘sweet spot’ has been criticised, and a cluster-randomised trial of load management guided by it, in 482 youth footballers, found no reduction in reported health problems; the practice reads these numbers beside asymmetry, HRV and sleep. Enter a week of loads; illustrative only.
—
This week’s load
—
Acute:chronic
—
Monotony
—
Strain
Load = session RPE (1–10) × minutes. Monotony = weekly mean ÷ standard deviation of the daily loads; strain = weekly load × monotony. Descriptive, not predictive.
Illustrative only; your assessment sets the real numbers.
05 · By discipline
What each sportputs first.
Twelve discipline groups inform the toolkit below. Individual coaching is for actors, models, Olympic athletes, bodybuilders and Elite Private Clients.
| Discipline | What usually takes the priority slot |
|---|---|
| Combat sports | Repeat-effort capacity, strength–speed, deceleration control, weight made from composition not water |
| Cricket | Rotational power, sprint acceleration, bowling-workload management, hamstring resilience |
| Track & field | Force–velocity profile by event, reactive strength, eccentric hamstring strength, sleep in travel |
| Football | Repeated sprint ability, change of direction, GPS-load management, in-season strength maintenance |
| Powerlifting & strength sport | Maximal strength, velocity-based peaking, technique under fatigue, joint-by-joint range |
| Bodybuilding & physique | Volume progression, proximity to failure, weak-point allocation, composition by DXA, the peak week |
| Tennis & golf | Rotational power, deceleration, shoulder and hip range, monotony control across long seasons |
| Endurance sport | Thresholds, economy, durability, iron and energy availability, heavy strength work for economy |
| Tactical & military | Load carriage, repeat-effort capacity, sleep under constraint, return-to-duty criteria |
| Masters athletes | Power first, heavy loads kept, volume rationed, bone density and recovery capacity measured |
| Executive performance | Strength and VO₂max as the two accounts, monotony and sleep managed around travel, energy through the working day |
| Film, screen & runway | Composition planned around the shoot date, strength kept, conditioning held, nothing dehydrated for the camera |
Starting points, not prescriptions; your assessment decides.
06 · Training for decades
Strength and powerthrough the years.
I retain appropriate strength and power work as clients age, with bone health and recovery measured alongside it.
- Heavy loads at every age, scaled to the joint.
- Jumps, throws and medicine-ball work, scaled to the landing seen on film.
- Protein per meal raised, because older muscle responds less to the same dose.
- Bone density and grip strength annually; VO₂max every twelve weeks, to review aerobic capacity.
Sources & further reading (9)
- Jukic et al., Sports Medicine 2023 — velocity-loss thresholds, 37 studies
- Impellizzeri et al., IJSPP 2020 — the acute:chronic workload ratio, critically
- Cluster-randomised trial of ACWR-guided load management, 482 youth footballers (summary)
- Pelland et al., Sports Medicine 2026 — volume, frequency and hypertrophy
- Robinson et al., Sports Medicine 2024 — repetitions in reserve and hypertrophy
- Rosenblat et al., Sports Medicine 2024 — polarised vs other intensity distributions
- Manresa-Rocamora et al., 2021 — HRV-guided training, meta-analysis
- Fyfe et al., J Appl Physiol 2019 — cold-water immersion and training adaptation
- Gabbett, BJSM 2016 — the training–injury prevention paradox
Training guidance does not replace assessment of pain or injury.
Bring your testing
Find the limiter.Then move it.
Bring whatever testing you have; it usually shortens the assessment.