When TC asked me to outline a recent training program, he was probably expecting to get something powerlifting-oriented, as that's probably the style of training people associate with my name around these parts.

Truth be told, I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my training career. I still consider myself an athlete first, meaning that lifting (while competitive in itself) has always been a means of becoming more athletic or displaying the athleticism I have.

To take it a step further, I work almost exclusively with athletes, particularly baseball guys. This past off-season at Cressey Performance, we saw 96 baseball players from 32 high schools, 16 colleges, and 8 MLB organizations.

As such, it's really important for me to not only look like an athlete (and not like a blocky, immobile powerlifter), but also be able to lift, jump, and sprint alongside these guys. Hell, I even caught bullpens for four of the pros!

While football guys are all about their 40 time, baseball guys care about their 60 time. Last fall, when I tested with my guys, I ran at 6.94. Not terrible, but not great. Putting it bluntly, unless you're David Wells or Fernando Valenzuela, if you want to play college ball (and certainly beyond college) you have to run a 60 sub-7.2. Here's a little frame of reference from a team that went to the College World Series:

Fastest: Position Player: 6.42, Pitcher: 6.76
Slowest: Position Player: 7.17, Pitcher: 7.58
Average: Position Player: 6.78, Pitcher: 7.04

So, getting my 60 time down was one goal for the winter. The only problem is, although I've got a turf straightaway in my facility, it isn't exactly easy to sprint in Boston during the winter, so I needed to work toward my end in a more indirect way. My goal was to get my front squat and vertical jump up in the interim. Here's the rationale for the entire program that follows:

1. Powerlifters tend to be extremely glute and hamstring dominant. In fact, I hadn't used my quads since 1986. Were it not for the hair on the front of my upper legs, you'd probably just see a femur, and then some big ol' hamstrings and an adductor magnus on the opposite side. Don't get me wrong; a strong posterior chain is great for sprinting, at top speed. Unfortunately, acceleration is pretty quad dominant, so in spite of my strength, I wasn't fantastic at the start.

2. My squat has always lagged behind my deadlift a bit, so it seemed like as good a time as any to work on it. As long as I do a bit of pulling in each program, I'll still be able to pull a 600-pound deadlift pretty much any day of the week.

Eric loves deadlifts.

3. The reason I've gotten good with shoulder problems is because I had a lot of them myself! In fact, my right shoulder was supposed to be scoped back in December of 2003, but I've learned to work around it. I've done a 365 raw bench at 188-190 and gone over 400 in a shirt. Not incredible numbers, but not too shabby for a guy with shoddy supraspinatus and labrum, and enough bone spurs to block out the sun. All that said, though, every 4-5 months, I include a month where I do markedly less pressing and really increase my rowing volume. This was one such month.

4. These shoulder problems are also the reason I gravitate toward front squatting and using the giant cambered bar (and safety squat bar). My shoulder doesn't particularly love back squatting, especially when it's done for an extended period of time.

5. You'll actually see reactive training (plyometrics) on four days of the week in this program. I don't normally do this with athletes, but most of them have better reactive ability and less strength than I do. In other words, I needed to learn to use the force I had more quickly. On Monday, it's a blend of linear and lateral plyos. On Wednesday, it's strictly lateral plyos. On Thursday, it's just straight-up sprint work in the form of starts. Saturday is just a pure power day (sets of one max vertical jumps). All of the plyos were done pre-training.

6. Normally, powerlifters (myself included) are huge on rotating exercises. I didn't do that in this program, simply because my goal was to get all the soreness out of the way in week 1 so that I could focus on the reactive training.

7. There's mobility in there because I'm the Mobility Guy. Yeah, whatever.

8. I rarely do full-body sessions, but it was a nice change of pace. I had some fun squatting 3x/week, even if it did royally kick my butt.

9. You can tell that I load like crazy in Week 3, and then take it easy in week 4. I'll drop almost all of my plyos in week 4 on account of my crazy rigid supinated feet.

10. I work hard on my hip extension and internal/external rotation range of motion, and you can see that with the "filler" mobility stuff between sets. I also spend a lot of time working on the soft tissues around my bum shoulder with the PVC and baseball.

11. You'll notice that there isn't a ton of single-leg work. The reason is that I've done a lot of it for a long time, and went back to doing a lot of it after this program. Contrary to what the functional folks will tell you, my gluteus medius isn't going to disappear if I cut back on my single-leg volume for a month.

Cutting out pistols for a while won't make one half-assed.

12. There really isn't a #12, but I've never seen anyone make a list of twelve points, so I'm a trendsetter as usual. Eat that, Waterbury!

Without further ado, here's the program, starting with the warm-ups. For the record, Day 1 was Monday, Day 2 was Wednesday, Day 3 was Thursday, and Day 4 was Saturday. I generally did some low-intensity resistance training circuits on Tuesdays and Fridays and took Sundays off altogether.

Session A (days 1 & 3)

Foam Rolling

• IT bands/tensor fasciae latae
• Quadriceps
• Hip flexors
• Adductors
• Rhomboids
• Thoracic Extension
• Piriformis/glutes (baseball)
• Calves and peroneals (baseball)
• Lats
• Pecs
• Infraspinatus (baseball)

Session B (days 2 & 4)

Foam Rolling

• IT bands/tensor fasciae latae
• Quadriceps
• Hip flexors
• Adductors
• Rhomboids
• Thoracic Extension
• Piriformis/glutes (baseball)
• Calves and peroneals (baseball)
• Lats
• Pecs
• Infraspinatus (baseball)

Day 1

Pre-work (omit in week 4): lateral low hurdle 1-leg hops (4x8/side), hurdle hops (4x6)

A1: Front squats vs. chains

A2: Kneeling wall hip flexor mobilization, knee-break ankle mobilizations

B1: Trap bar deadlift

B2: Hip internal/external rotation static stretch

C1: MP bar bench

C2: Chest-supported row, pronated grip

D1: Land mines

D2: Lat rolling on PVC

Day 2

Pre-work: in-place lateral line hops (3x10/side), Heidens (4x6)

A1: Giant cambered bar free squats

A2: Kneeling wall hip flexor mobilization, supine dynamic hip internal rotations

B1: Dumbbell reverse lunges from deficit

B2: Dragon flags

C1: Forward sled pushes

C2: Lat rolling on PVC

Day 3

Pre-work: crossovers 15-yard starts (8/side)

A1: Weighted chin-ups

A2: Bench press vs. chains

B1: Seated cable rows, neutral grip

B2: Feet elevated close-grip pushups vs. bands

C1: Kneeling cable external rotation

C2: EZ bar reverse curl

Day 4

Pre-work: max vertical jump (10x1)

A1: Front squat

A2: Kneeling wall hip flexor mobilization, wall ankle mobilizations with pronation facilitation

B1: Snatch grip rack pulls

B2: Scap pushups

C1: One-arm dumbbell rows

C2: Chain pushups

D1: Thick handle hammer curls

D2: PVC on ITB/TFL

As far as diet is concerned, I've always done extremely well with a lower carb diet where I eat a lot of protein, healthy fats, and veggies. I'll add in a higher carb day every 7-10 days, typically on a day when my lower body volume is high.

For all intents and purposes, my diet is still very similar to what I outlined in my Periodize Your Diet article a few years ago. Truthfully, I'm not really eating to lean out or grow, I'm just eating to fuel my performance.

For supplements, each month I ask the Biotest fairy to bring me Flameout, Superfood, Low-Carb Metabolic Drive, Surge, BCAA, Spike, and creatine. I usually am pretty exhausted at the end of the day and can sleep fine without it, but I'll knock back some ZMA here and there anyway. I'm a big believer in Vitamin D supplementation in the northeast in the winter (and I did this program in January), so I'm taking 400 IU on top of what I get in my multivitamin.

As far as results are concerned, I:

1. Put 20 pounds on my front squat
2. Put 1.2 inches on my vertical jump
3. Outgrew some pants in the butt and quads
4. Improved my accelerations considerably
5. Set myself up well for now: the time when it's nice enough to get outside and sprint

Eric Cressey is a highly sought-after strength and conditioning coach and owner of Cressey Performance, just west of Boston. Eric has worked with athletes of all levels, from youth sports to the professional and Olympic levels. Feel free to contact him and sign up for his free newsletter at his web site, and check out his daily updates at his blog.

Eric's new book, Maximum Strength, is available at his web site, as well as alongside his other products at the T-Nation online store.