How do we Incorporate Individualization?
Individualization is a tenet of sports performance training as it involves training the individual circumstances of the athlete- not every athlete has the same strengths/weaknesses, requirements of their sport/position, etc.
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To put it simply, individualization revolves around the concept that each athlete's body needs different training stimuli in order to perform at the highest level. For too long, individualization has been ignored in team settings as it is logistically difficult to train numerous athletes in different way. To solve this, I created the 3-Tiered Approach which involves every athlete performing the same lifts for the first two tiers, in order to make coaching easy on the staff; then, for the third and final tier, athletes are divided into 3-4 groups based on similar strengths/weaknesses or based on position. This division allows us to train each group differently for the final 15-minutes of each training session, allowing the individual needs of the athlete to be addressed in a large group setting.
Think about your sports team, do you want all athletes doing the same thing? Or, do some positions/athletes require more explosion, or more cardiovascular endurance, or more upper-body strength, etc. Through the 3-Tiered Approach, we can divide our athletes into 3-4 groups, and give each group different training stimuli, and thus elicit more specific adaptations.