In-Season Strength for Team-Sport Athletes: The Joint-by-Joint Model
Mike Boyle, a 15-year Boston University strength coach who has worked with the Bruins, US Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Team and Red Sox, structures programming around the joint-by-joint model: moving up the body, each major joint is trained as needing primarily mobility or primarily stability, alternating link to link. This is a widely-used coaching framework, not a physiological law proven in randomized trials; treat it as an organizing lens for programming, not a guarantee.
Learn the joint-by-joint framework Moving up the body, each major joint is trained as needing primarily mobility or primarily stability, alternating link to link: ankle (mobility), knee (stability), hip (mobility), lumbar spine (stability), thoracic spine (mobility), scapula (stability), shoulder (mobility), elbow (stability), wrist (mobility)
Originally described by Gray Cook and popularized by Boyle: when a joint that should be mobile becomes stiff, or a joint that should be stable becomes loose, the body typically borrows movement from the joint above or below, which is where a lot of overuse injury shows up.
Cut total strength-training volume once competition season starts Roughly 2 shorter sessions per week in-season, versus 3 to 4 in the off-season, prioritizing maintenance over new adaptation
In-season, the priority shifts from building new strength to maintaining what has already been built, without adding fatigue that hurts game performance.
Prioritize ankle, hip and thoracic-spine mobility work in the warmup A short, targeted mobility circuit before each session
These are the joints the model treats as needing the most range of motion; keeping them mobile reduces the load a neighboring joint has to absorb.
Build knee and lumbar-spine (core) stability work into every session Single-leg strength work and core-bracing drills as a standing part of the program
These joints are more prone to overuse injury when they are forced to compensate for a stiff neighboring joint.
Program movements that transfer to the sport (change of direction, single-leg power) rather than a generic bodybuilding split Sport-specific movement patterns take priority over isolation work
Team-sport athletes need transfer to the field or ice, not just bigger lifts in the gym.
Treat this as a coaching framework, not a proven physiological law n/a
The joint-by-joint model is a widely-adopted heuristic among elite strength coaches, not something tested in randomized controlled trials; use it as an organizing lens for programming, not a guarantee.
The joint-by-joint model is a coaching heuristic, not an RCT-tested physiological law.
View sources
History (Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning)
Not medical advice. This page is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Consult a qualified clinician before changing your health routine.
Independent curation. YourProtocol is an independent platform. This protocol is based on the publicly available work of Mike Boyle and is not created, reviewed, endorsed by, or affiliated with Mike Boyle or Founder, Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning (MBSC).
Is this for you
- In-season team-sport athletes and their coaches structuring maintenance-phase strength work
- Anyone wanting a joint-by-joint lens for organizing mobility and stability training
- Not a substitute for individualized coaching or a physical therapy plan
Cautions
- This is expert-practitioner consensus, a widely used coaching framework, not RCT-tested science; treat the joint-by-joint model as an organizing lens for programming, not a proven physiological law
- Boyle holds a commercial interest in the Certified Functional Strength Coach (CFSC) certification and MBSC's for-profit training facilities, online programs and instructional content; weigh that alongside his recommendations
- In-season programming should be adjusted by a qualified strength coach who knows the athlete's sport, schedule and injury history; this is general education, not an individualized program
- If you have an existing injury, work with a physical therapist or physician before starting a new strength program
- Media note: only one verified source (a Read/bio page) is confirmed for this page as of publish; Listen/Watch/Clip sources are an open gap pending a further verification pass, not fabricated placeholders
- Educational only, not medical advice