Where Team Training Falls Short

By Coach Aaron Thigpen

Why “everyone does the same thing” is not always the same as good athlete development
The catalyst for this blog was when I saw an instagram post of some local athletes who posted a video of their highschool team training. Im quite sure this is what most look like across the country. All I’ll say is it got me thinking and heres my thoughts………
Most high school athletes are not going to play college sports, and that is completely fine. Still, some athletes want that next level, even if only a smaller group will actually get there. For those athletes, high school sports are usually the biggest source of training, competition, and exposure they will experience. It is where a lot of their development time goes, whether the schedule is perfect or not.
So the question is not really whether high school sports should be part of athlete development. For most athletes, it already is. The real question is whether the high school model is always the best use of their time—and honestly, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.
High school athletics can provide competition, teammates, structure, and chances to improve under pressure. It can also bring crowded schedules, uneven coaching, too much volume, and the idea that everyone should train the same way because it is easier to organize. Since most athletes cannot avoid the system, the move is not to pretend it does not exist. The move is to understand what it does well, notice where it falls short, take the good stuff, and try not to get wrecked by the bad stuff.
Team training can be one of the best parts of being an athlete. You get energy from teammates, compete without having to force it, and learn how to work when other people are watching. A good group can make hard training feel more manageable because nobody is doing it alone.
But group training also has a weakness that shows up fast when coaches are not careful: athletes are different, even when they wear the same jersey.
Different bodies, different experience levels, different injury histories, different sport schedules, and different amounts of sleep. Still, it is easy for a team session to become 25 athletes doing the exact same thing because that is simpler to organize. Simple is good sometimes. Lazy programming is not.
Team training falls short when the session is designed around convenience instead of what athletes actually need. The goal is not to turn every practice into private training. The goal is to make sure shared work does not ignore individual athletes.

The One-Size-Fits-All Problem

The biggest issue with team training is that a shared plan can become a shared mistake.
Picture a group of athletes doing the same lifting workout. One athlete is new to strength training. Another has years of experience. One played two games that weekend. One has been dealing with a sore knee. One is still growing quickly and figuring out how to control their body. Giving all of them the same weight, reps, jumps, and running volume does not make the session fair. It just makes it uniform.
Uniform training can be too much for some athletes and not enough for others. The newer athlete might spend the session trying to survive movements they do not understand. The more experienced athlete might finish feeling like they barely trained. Neither athlete gets the right stimulus.
This does not mean every person needs a totally different workout. That would be impossible for most teams. Athletes can share the same goal while using different loads, exercise variations, distances, or rest periods. Everyone might be working on lower-body strength, for example, without everyone needing the same barbell weight or movement.
Good team training has lanes. Athletes stay connected to the group, but their work matches their current ability.

Hard Work Is Not Always Useful Work

Another problem is confusing fatigue with improvement. Athletes know this one. Sometimes a session is treated as successful because everyone is sweating, breathing hard, and walking slowly to the locker room. That may look tough, but it does not automatically mean it helped performance.
Being exhausted is not a training goal by itself. Athletes need to get faster, stronger, more coordinated, more durable, and more confident in their sport. If a session creates a huge amount of fatigue but does not improve one of those things, it may just make the next practice worse.
Random circuits are a common example. Doing a bunch of exercises with no rest can feel intense. It can also make technique fall apart. If the goal is power, sprinting, jumping, or skill development, tired and sloppy repetitions are usually not the answer. You do not become more explosive by practicing being exhausted at everything.
There is a place for conditioning. Sports are demanding, and athletes need fitness. But conditioning should have a reason. Coaches should know what quality they are training, why that quality matters, and how much fatigue the athletes can handle alongside practices and games.
Sometimes the toughest decision is to stop before the session gets ugly. That is not soft. It is protecting the quality of the work.

Ability Gaps Can Make Everyone Worse

Large groups often include athletes with very different training ages. Training age is not the same as actual age. A 16-year-old who has learned basic movement patterns for years may be ready for more advanced work than a 16-year-old who has never been in a weight room. Treating them the same can create problems.
The less experienced athlete may feel embarrassed, overwhelmed, or unsafe. They may rush to keep up, use bad form, or avoid asking questions because they do not want to look behind. That is a terrible way to learn.
The more developed athlete can also lose out. If every session moves at the pace of the least experienced person, advanced athletes may get too much waiting and not enough challenge. They can start going through the motions, which is not good for them or the team culture.
The answer is not separating athletes into permanent “good” and “bad” groups. That kind of labeling sticks. Athletes earn more complexity through control, not because they are louder or more confident.
For example, one athlete may use a bodyweight landing drill, another may do a controlled jump, and another may move into a more demanding plyometric variation. Same theme. Different level. Everybody has a chance to improve without pretending they are in the same place.

Less Attention Means Missed Details

Coaches do not have unlimited eyes. In a big group, they cannot watch every rep, every sprint, and every landing. That is just reality.
When group size rises, athletes can hide. The quiet athlete with sore shins may keep running even though their mechanics are getting worse. The athlete who does not understand a lift may copy the person next to them and hope for the best. The athlete who is ready for more may never get noticed.
That is why organization matters so much. If a coach sets up too many stations, too much equipment, and too many complicated drills, the group becomes hard to observe. The session might look creative, but nobody is getting meaningful feedback.
Clear standards make a difference. Athletes should know what good movement looks like, what the goal of the drill is, and when they should stop or ask for help.
A good group session does not require constant coaching on every second. It does require enough attention that poor quality does not become the normal standard.

Group Pressure Can Work Both Ways

Teammates can push each other in a good way, but group pressure can also make athletes ignore warning signs. Nobody wants to be the person who needs a modification. Nobody wants to step out of a drill when everyone else is still going.
This is where culture matters. If athletes think asking for an adjustment means they are weak, they will hide pain and fatigue. That can turn a manageable issue into a bigger one. Coaches need to make it normal for athletes to communicate honestly about readiness, especially during busy competition periods.
That does not mean athletes get to avoid difficult work whenever it feels uncomfortable. Training should be challenging. But there is a difference between normal effort and work that is no longer productive or safe.
The strongest team cultures are not the ones where everyone pretends to feel perfect. They are the ones where athletes take responsibility for their own bodies while still showing up for the group.

How Team Training Can Be Better

Team training does not need to be abandoned. It needs to be designed with more thought.
Protect quality, watch the athletes. Ask how they are responding. Adjust when technique drops, when fatigue is too high. The plan should guide the session, not trap athletes inside it.
Team training is valuable because athletes need teammates. But athletes are still individuals inside the team.
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