Who Owns Your Physical Development?

The tension between personal trainers and team programs.

Aug 03, 2026

One of the biggest points of contention between an athlete and the team is the utilization of a personal trainer (strength and conditioning coach) vs adhering to the team program. This problem exists at all levels (high school up through the professional ranks).

Interestingly, other athlete management programs tend to have more flexibility:

Nutrition plans
Sports psychology
Physical therapy
Even outside skill coaches — a shooting coach, a pitching coach, a quarterback guru

Strength and conditioning seems to be the gospel on which you shall not tread.

It matters to know that this issue is actually over two different jobs. Your personal trainer’s job is to maximize you. The team strength coach’s job is to maximize 20, 30, and sometimes up to 100 athletes at once.

One optimizes for the individual. The other optimizes for the group/system.

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

Let’s set aside some of the obvious benefits of a team strength program, like the fact that not every athlete cares to hire their own personal trainer (reasons for money, time, etc.).

Liability can be an argument. But I think it’s weak. They may argue that if something happens in-house (injury, overtraining) the team owns it. Outside programming in parallel is a variable dependent on the athlete’s personal insurer.

Team bonding is an argument I actually appreciate. A roster that lifts together spends more time together. It builds culture, accountability, a shared standard nobody opts out of.

Practice planning is weak. The team’s strength coach talks to the coaches daily. He has an idea of what certain athletes can handle on a given day. Pretty sure a personal trainer can do that with a few clicks on the old keyboard.

Data tracking only works if everyone logs into the same system. One outlier breaks the picture for the whole roster. At least that’s a common argument.

The theme among these points toward efficiency. Teams are trying to create value for a large group.

Never forget, teams, like companies, like organisms, are programmed to survive, and even grow. You step out of line and you are perceived as disrupting that growth.

IN MY IDEAL WORLD?

Everyone gets their own trainer.

The consensus in academia is that those with private tutors have a major advantage. Many collegiate students skip classes altogether only to take the tests. Why should it be any different for the athlete and the weightroom (I ain’t talking ’bout practice!)?

The benefits of individualized programs are fairly obvious. One individual focusing on your needs which, ironically, better helps the group, beats a program built for the average (injury reduction, movement patterns, specific goals, etc.).

Team programs try to compensate for this with various technologies and questionnaires. The intent is good, but insufficient. It raises the floor, not the ceiling.

At the end of the day, a personal trainer chases your specifics in a way a coach managing a group simply cannot.

HOW YOU CAN MAKE THIS WORK (OR, AT LEAST TRY) IF YOU BELIEVE A PRIVATE TRAINER IS WHAT YOU NEED

The solution to this problem is not obvious, and nobody (I’ve known) has an answer that will cut through all the varying situations. But, here are a couple examples:

Adam Archuleta was an Arizona State football walk-on who ended up going in the first round of the 2001 NFL draft. Many give his then personal trainer, Jay Schroeder, an overwhelming amount of credit for this.

He ran his own program alongside the team’s and held back in team lifts to protect his own work. I can’t presume to know what the interactions with his team’s coaches were like. But if they knew he was slacking, I’d venture to bet they weren’t always pleasant.

Bode Miller was an outlier in every sense of the word. He created his own ski team strictly because he hated the US team training requirements. He won an overall World Cup in the process. He later reconciled with the US Ski Team to join them in the Olympics (but I don’t believe he ever re-joined the team workouts).

It’s nice to be the star. However, this was his nature long before becoming the GOAT (at least for the US men).

Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Kyler Murray. All skipped voluntary NFL offseason work to train privately. A pattern more players copy every year. But the key word here is “voluntary.”

You can: go transparent and have your trainer fully communicate with your coaches, try and run both programs at once, or treat your team workouts as a lounging opportunity / become a great actor pretending to work out hard in team sessions.

My take: do everything possible to avoid doing both. Try and convince your coaches that going solo is best for you and the team - and give them examples. Be concession-friendly and have your trainer set up a system to communicate regularly with the team.

Every coach and program is different. See what they say.

If this doesn’t work, you can always utilize your personal trainer as a “fixer” for any deficits incurred during team workouts.

The other two options are something to avoid if possible: tell the coaches to buzz off and see what happens, or try and do both workouts (which sounds exhausting).

LEVERAGE CHANGES EVERYTHING

As is the case with everything, the better you perform in competition, the more room you get to operate. Let’s call it “Athletic Capital.”

Leverage buys flexibility because it buys the benefit of the doubt. Coaches often let their best players do things they’d never allow from someone still fighting for a roster spot. Earn the leverage first. Spend it after.

Onward and upward!

—Ryan

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