Is this the best training split for Tactical Athletes?
And it's probably not what you think
Let’s be real - the best training split for YOU may be dependent on a few individual factors.
However, we’ve trained thousands of military, police, and firefighters, and without a doubt (and it’s not even close), the training system our athletes get the best results out of is the Tier System.
What is the Tier System, you may ask?
Tier is a full body training system developed by famed NFL Strength & Conditioning coach, Joe Kenn. Tier was born out of necessity in collegiate athletics. Coach Kenn required a system that trained athletes for the demands of sporting performance. Not only did he need athletes that are strong and powerful but needed them to be that when they’re stressed and tired…deep into the game…when it matters most.
Coach Kenn states in the introduction of his strength training playbook:
“Because of the increased importance of an athlete to be conditioned year-round, a properly planned program has increased the role of the Strength & Conditioning coach. A team or individual that is functionally stronger and in better condition generally wins the competition. These athletes usually have followed a structured yearly training program, one that includes all aspects of strength, mobility, flexibility, nutrition, conditioning, agility, and speed development.”
Sound a bit like what’s required for military performance? Conditioned year round…functionally stronger…
Yep…it sounds like what we require from our athletes for tactical performance.
Before we jump into the split itself, one major difference I see between sport athletes and tactical athletes is the inclusion of a season. The goal for sport athletes is to peak at specific times of the year (games), whereas the goal for tactical athletes is to achieve the highest sustainable level of readiness year-round. Here’s a full article on that.
The Tier System Template
The Tier System is a full body training template that takes principles from Westside Barbell, traditional strength & conditioning periodization, high intensity interval training (HIIT), strongman, etc, and put them in the total package for athletic conditioning.
Why full body training?
We gravitated from a traditional conjugate + conditioning model on Warfighter to fully adopting Tier System full body training for a variety of reasons, but the top ones are:
There’s a ton of schedule variability for military, police, and law enforcement. If you are performing a body building split and have to miss a day of training, then you’re going a full week before touching that muscle group again. With full body training, we are hitting upper, lower, and total body movements 3x a week. While we’re hoping you don’t have to miss any days, the split mitigates the negative impacts of scheduling conflicts, because at least we are still training the total body multiple other times in the week.
It gives us enough space in the training schedule to equally balance strength AND conditioning. We’ve found that 3 total body strength training days are sufficient for getting big gains. This allows us to place equal weight on our conditioning work and provide an interval, easy effort distance, and fartlek session in the training week. This gets messy if we’re trying to lift five times a week. We believe in separating our conditioning from our strength days and this provides a means to get our athletes as balanced as possible.
The Tier System is a template and it’s adaptable. You’re going to find out exactly why as you continue to read, but oftentimes, tactical professionals will find themselves without their regular gym or equipment. When you have a system in your training, then you can understand how to adapt your training to your conditions without throwing the plan completely out the window.
You can think of the Tier System as a template with rotating movement categories.
Here’s what I mean…
Mondays on Warfighter begin with max effort lower body movement, followed by an upper body movement using either dynamic effort method (moderate loading performed at max velocity) or programmed for strength-endurance, then the third movement of the day is a total body accessory movement such as a Kettlebell Swing or some sort of strongman implement or heavy carry. We’ll then typically finish with a bit of work capacity, often in the form of a 10-12 minute AMRAP. **Keep in mind that there’s numerous ways to program dependent on athlete’s goals - this example is from Warfighter, our training program for tactical athletes.**
When we strength train again on Wednesday, these movement categories simply rotate. We’re performing max effort upper body as the first movement of the day, followed by dynamic effort or strength-endurance total body, then an accessory lower body movement. This rotates again on Friday and we perform a max effort total body movement (clean, deadlift), dynamic effort or strength endurance lower body, and upper body accessory.
Here’s an example of a strength day:
We often program an explosive plyometric movement following the warm-up of a similar pattern to the max effort to prime the athlete for their heavy lifts. As you can see in this example, we are hitting a max effort upper movement, dynamic effort total body, and accessory lower body. We’re finishing up with a loaded carry circuit to close out training.
Here’s the full training template for the week:
Monday - Total Body Strength (Max Effort Lower/Dynamic Effort Upper/Total Body Accessory)
Tuesday - Conditioning (Intervals/Speed Focus)
Wednesday - Total Body Strength (Max Effort Upper/Dynamic Effort Total Body/Lower Body Accessory)
Thursday - Conditioning (Easy Effort Distance)
Friday - Total Body Strength (Max Effort Total Body/Dynamic Effort Lower/Upper Body Accessory)
Saturday - Conditioning (Fartlek or Tempo Run)
Sunday - Rest
This template is a guide, not a rigid structure that confines you to doing EXACTLY this. In fact, if you look at the original PDF by Coach Kenn, you’ll see that he starts the week with a max effort total body movement.
We changed this for our athletes because we don’t place as heavy of an emphasis on the Power Clean as others do and our typical total body movement is the deadlift. I like to create as much space between max effort squats and deadlifts as possible, so I stuck them on opposite ends of the week. It’s not that one way is right or wrong; you just adapt to what makes the most sense for your goals and schedule.
The true power in understanding this is that now you are no longer bound to blindly following random sets and reps with no structure. No matter where you find yourself, you can still follow this template.
Let’s say that I’m supposed to perform max effort Back Squats for 3 x 5 but I’m traveling and all I have is a 35 lb kettlebell. I may not be able to do my regular squats, but I can definitely perform something, such as a Bulgarian Split Squat. I can continue to make it challenging by holding the kettlebell in various positions, like a front rack.
Is that as good as meticulously following the program and hitting every rep exactly as programmed? No, but that’s also not realistic.
We aren’t looking for perfect. We’re looking for practical. And if you are in a tactical profession, you need something that allows you to be consistent. Not something that falls apart every time you go to training or something comes up in your schedule.
The Tier System has been around for decades and produced elite results for collegiate and professional athletes. It’s our belief that this system is HIGHLY applicable for tactical professionals and is the reason we use it as our guiding light on Warfighter. So, if you are needing a training system, and not a random assortment of 12-week programs, give Tier a try and watch what it does for you.