From Assessment to Action: What’s Next in Your Training at Black Flag

After wrapping up our first official Assessment Week, we’re excited to shift gears and dive back into purposeful, results-driven training. The past week gave us valuable insight into where our community thrives and where there’s room for growth across strength, endurance, mobility, stability and overall performance.

At Black Flag Strength & Conditioning, we believe in the power of objective feedback. The old adage holds true: “Assess, don’t guess.” With the data we’ve gathered—combined with the conversations we’ve had with many of you—we’re making strategic updates to our training structure to ensure continued progress across all domains of fitness.

The feedback from Assessment Week revealed a few important themes: our community values variety balanced with linear progression, and a balanced focus across strength, conditioning and enhanced movement.  In response, we’re retooling our programming template to reflect a more dynamic and effective approach, increasing outcomes, minimizing the interference effect and creating the strongest adaptations possible through intelligent training design and great coaching application.

We’re introducing a 12-week undulating training cycle, broken down into four, three-week blocks. Each phase will shift the emphasis slightly to target specific adaptations while ensuring a well-rounded, sustainable training experience.

Here’s what the upcoming training cycle will look like:

Block 1 (Weeks 1–3): Conditioning-Biased

• Primary Focus:Aerobic capacity, lactate threshold/endurance and muscular endurance.
• Structure:
  • 3 high-intensity interval training (HIIT) sessions (one cardio based)
  • 2 strength-biased sessions (upper push/pull and lower body strength biased days prioritizing hypertrophy)
  • 1 aerobic endurance-based session

This block sets the foundation for the heavier strength work that follows by boosting your engine and work capacity so that we increase the density of work in upcoming training blocks.

Block 2 (Weeks 4–6): Strength-Biased

• Primary Focus:Strength development across all major lifts
• Structure:
  • 3 strength-focused sessions (push day, pull day, lower body day – emphasizing higher intensity (weights) for strength development)
  • 2 Mixed HIIT sessions
  • 1 recovery-based endurance session

This structure supports high-quality strength development work while still maintaining overall conditioning and movement quality.

Block 3 (Weeks 7–9): Balanced & Deload-Oriented

• Primary Focus:Recovery, movement variety, and training sustainability
• Structure:
  • 2 strength-biased sessions (combined upper/lower days – Strength + Hypertrophy)
  • 2 endurance sessions
  • 2 mixed-modal HIIT sessions

Think of this as a deload phase that keeps you moving while giving your body and nervous system time to recover and reset.

Block 4 (Weeks 10–12): Strength Re-Emphasis & Pre-Reassessment

• Primary Focus:Strength progression leading into reassessments
• Structure:
  • 3 strength-biased sessions
  • 2 HIIT sessions
  • 1 endurance session

We finish strong by reinforcing everything we’ve built so far—priming you for another round of assessments to measure your progress.

Our goal has always been to provide the most intelligent, effective, and sustainable training experience possible. This next phase reflects that mission—built on community feedback, performance data, and sound training science.

We’re proud to lead a program that balances intensity with intention and effort with education. Thank you for trusting our coaching team and continuing to invest in your health, fitness, and long-term resilience.

 Yours In Fitness,