Between 2 Racks
Between 2 Racks is a strength training podcast from KILO, a coach-led education company built to support personal trainers and strength coaches who want a deeper, more durable understanding of training.
The goal is simple: create a home for sound knowledge. Not trends, not shortcuts, and not recycled talking points.
Each episode explores program design, loading, periodization, and coaching decisions through real-world application. We focus on what holds up over time, where theory breaks down in practice, and how coaches can make better decisions for the people they train.
Hosted by experienced coaches with decades spent in private training, performance settings, and long-term athlete development, the conversations are practical, honest, and grounded in principle.
If you are a coach looking for clarity, depth, and a place to think critically about training, Between 2 Racks is that space.
Let’s kick it!
Between 2 Racks
Sports Performance: What Coaches Get Wrong in the Off-Season
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of Between 2 Racks, the KILO Crew breaks down sports performance training through the lens of off-season program design, and why coaches often rush toward specificity before building the qualities that actually support performance.
The conversation starts with one of the most common mistakes coaches make when they only have 8 to 12 weeks with an athlete: skipping the general preparation phase. From there, the episode clarifies the difference between GPP and SPP, how those phases shift depending on timeline and training age, and why “general” training is not the same thing as random training.
Pauric, Steph, and Kelsey also discuss why simply getting athletes stronger is not a complete strategy. Strength matters, but so do rate of force development, tissue tolerance, joint integrity, movement quality, and the athlete’s ability to express force within the time constraints of sport. They cover practical standards like strength reserve, the role of relative strength, when hypertrophy helps or hurts, and why volume has to drop as athletes get closer to the season.
The episode also tackles one of the most misused phrases in performance training: sport-specific. The weight room should support the athlete’s ability to perform, not imitate the sport poorly.
For coaches working with athletes, this episode is a reminder that better off-season training comes from understanding principles, not chasing drills.
Build the qualities first. Specificity only works when the base can support it.
0:00 Sports Performance Training
1:19 Biggest programming mistakes with 8-12 week timelines
2:40 GPP vs SPP explained (general vs specific preparation phases)
8:54 Why just getting stronger isn't a complete off-season strategy
12:59 Assessing a new athlete: what to look for before programming
21:47 Strength reserve: what it is and why it matters
27:59 When to convert strength into power (the 2x bodyweight squat standard)
30:47 Does the strength standard apply to both male and female athletes?
33:39 Tissue tolerance and joint integrity in off-season training
36:31 When hypertrophy helps vs. when it becomes a distraction
44:33 Why training volume must drop as the season approaches
47:38 Why "sport-specific" training is often misused in the weight room
51:08 Wrap-up / closing notes
Stay Connected with KILO:
Have a question? Submit it for a Rapid Fire episode.
Learn more at trainkilo.com
Follow KILO on Instagram and YouTube.