The one thing most "athletic" training programs get backwards
I played D1 linebacker at Wofford, got a shot at an NFL camp with the Giants, played professional rugby in South Africa, and I'm now on the pathway to Team USA Bobsled. I'm also a CSCS. Here's the biggest mistake I see in 90% of "athletic performance" programs — including ones I used to run:
They program exercises before they program qualities.
Most people pick a workout because it looks hard or because an influencer did it. But speed, power, and explosiveness aren't built by random exercise selection — they're built by identifying which physical quality is actually your bottleneck, then training that quality specifically, with exercises chosen because of what they develop, not because they look impressive on camera.
A few things I've learned the hard way across football, rugby, and bobsled prep:
Strength is the floor, not the ceiling. You need a strength base to express power, but chasing 1RMs past a certain point stops transferring to the field. Rate of force development matters more than max strength once you're past beginner numbers.
Speed is a skill, not just a byproduct of being strong. Sprint mechanics, acceleration angles, and force application into the ground need to be drilled directly — they don't just show up because you squat heavy.
Most people are undertrained in deceleration. Everyone trains acceleration. Almost nobody trains how to stop, cut, and change direction safely — which is exactly where non-contact injuries happen.
"Explosive" training without a strength base is just risk. Box jumps and med ball throws are useless (and dangerous) if the underlying tissue and strength qualities aren't there yet to support them.
The programs that actually work — the ones I saw at the D1 and pro level — are built backwards from the athlete's specific weaknesses and sport demands, not forwards from a list of cool exercises.
If you're training for a sport, or just want to move like an athlete again, start by figuring out which quality (strength, speed, power, or movement mechanics) is actually your limiter. That's the whole game.