HIGH SCHOOL TRAINING EDUCATION
30 chapters. The part no program gives you.
Hand a high school athlete a program and they will do it. Ask them why the sets are written that way, what a prep set is for, whether being sore means it worked, or how much they actually need to eat, and most of them will guess. Not because they are lazy. Because nobody ever told them.
This is the book that tells them. 32 pages, 30 chapters, written for a 14 to 18 year old to actually read and understand — no jargon for its own sake, no filler, one idea per page.
Who it's for
Any high school athlete, any sport, any training level. It assumes nothing. The early chapters start at what a muscle is and how to behave in a weight room; the later ones get into motor unit recruitment and the research behind low rep training, and they get there gradually enough that the kid who started at chapter one is still with you.
It is also written for the people around them. Parents who want to know whether their kid should be lifting at all. Coaches who need a reference to hand a whole group instead of explaining fuelling for the ninth time. Anyone who has been handed a program and wants to understand what they are holding.
What's inside
Your Body — Anatomy without the exam. Labelled diagrams of the bones and the major muscles, front and back, with the real names and what each one actually does when you lift, sprint and jump.
The Weight Room — Safety and etiquette. How to bail a squat, how to spot, how to load a bar, where to put your phone, and how not to be the person everyone is waiting on.
How Training Works — What strength actually is and the standards that go with it. The difference between size, speed and power. Reps as a prescribed dose rather than a tradition. Why prep sets are not warm up sets. And how to read the numbers on a program: percentages, a rep max, and what 4 × 6 · 24 total means.
Training Like An Athlete — The step up, and the longest section in the book. How athletes train differently from everyone else in the gym. Why "8 to 12 for size" was never the answer. Motor units and the size principle, explained so a teenager gets it. What failure really means and when it costs you. The research behind low rep sets, honestly presented. Tonnage as the scoreboard that never lies. How much weight to use, how long to rest, how to start safely, and how a session is built from top to bottom.
Recovery — Soreness and DOMS, and why it is not a scorecard. Sleep, stress and what recovery actually is. Soft tissue work, foam rolling and stretching, and what each is good for. Why conditioning matters, even for athletes who think they are above it.
Fuel — The basics first, then the numbers: protein, carbs, fat and how much of each for a body that is still growing. Then two full chapters on gaining weight — the mindset, and a plan you can actually follow.
Train Smart — The last page, and the one that matters most.
Why it's worth owning
A program expires. Understanding does not. An athlete who knows why a heavy triple beats a set of ten taken to a burn will make better decisions in every gym they walk into for the next ten years, with or without a coach standing there.
Thirty chapters, clickable contents, bookmarked sections, and built to be printed or read on a phone on the bus.
This chapter is already included inside both editions of The Training Year. It is sold on its own for the athlete, parent or coach who wants the education without the program.
