By Stephen Portee, MS, CSCS
One of the most common questions I hear from clients is: "How should I organize my workouts if I want to stay strong and improve athleticism?"
The answer goes beyond picking good exercises. How you sequence your training matters just as much as what you put in it — it's one more way of building a body that can actually support the life you want to live, the idea we explore more broadly in Building a Body That Keeps Up With You.
Think of your workout as a hierarchy. Each phase sets the stage for the next.
A proper warm-up is more than "getting loose." It raises core temperature, improves joint mobility, and activates the specific muscles needed for the session ahead.
From a performance standpoint, this phase improves neuromuscular readiness — the ability of your nervous system to recruit muscle efficiently.
Examples: dynamic mobility drills, targeted activation work (glutes, rotator cuff), light coordination patterns and skips.
Speed and power are driven primarily by the nervous system, not just the muscles. These qualities are extremely sensitive to fatigue — power output declines measurably as fatigue accumulates.[1] That's a key reason we place them at the beginning of the session, when the nervous system is best able to produce rapid, maximal output.
Training speed and power late in a session, when fatigue has accumulated, limits force output, reduces movement velocity, and blunts the adaptive signal.
Examples: sprints, plyometrics, medicine ball throws, Olympic lift variations.
Strength work follows power work. While it still requires significant force output, it does not demand the same level of high-velocity nervous system coordination as power training.
Examples: squats, deadlifts, presses, weighted pull-ups, and other compound strength movements.
Accessory exercises address muscular imbalances, improve joint stability, and reinforce efficient movement patterns.
Examples: single-leg movements, rotational core work, shoulder stability drills, posterior chain accessories.
Conditioning belongs at the end of the session. It places significant demands on the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, and research on concurrent training shows that stacking endurance work onto strength and power work can measurably reduce the strength, hypertrophy, and power adaptations you're training for.[2]
Examples: sled pushes, interval bike sprints, circuit-style conditioning.
Fatigue follows a predictable pattern. First, your ability to produce force quickly declines. Then maximal strength output begins to drop. Finally, overall energy reserves are depleted.
Structuring training around this progression ensures that each quality is trained under the best possible conditions. If you're specifically training for speed development, we go deeper on sequencing and progression in How I Approach Training Someone for Speed.
Training for athleticism is not just about doing the right exercises. It is about doing them in the right order — and in the right condition.
Stephen Portee, MS, CSCS is the Managing Partner and lead strength and conditioning coach at Apollo Performance Chiropractic & Training in Pleasantville, NY.
