What your
kid is doing

Three gym sessions a week (legs, push, pull), a tempo running session, a speed session with timed sprints, and a race or time trial on Saturday. Everything is built around getting faster: explosive lifts at moderate weights, strength lifts that climb set by set, jumps and sprints in small doses with full rest. There is no jogging and no grinding through failure. Sessions run 45 to 75 minutes.

The programme was written by Vern Holden for his own children, aged 15 to 23, and their teammates, and he trains it alongside them. Every exercise has been checked against the published research, and the reasoning is written down. Where the coach and the evidence disagree, the evidence is recorded and the safer option is what under 18s get.

• No max testing under 16, ever. Every heavy number is estimated from a set of five with reps to spare. The app never asks a child to find a one-rep max.
• Every weight starts light. A new athlete's first sessions start well under the calculated number and climb only when the sets are rated easy. A guessed number is worse than a blank one, and the app says so.
• A readiness check before every session. Sleep, soreness, energy and any pain. Two red days in a row and the next week goes light on its own: loads at 60 percent, half the jumps.
• Growth spurts are watched. Under 18s log their height monthly. A centimetre or more of growth in a month halves the jump volume for four weeks while tendons and growth plates catch up. Heel, knee or Achilles pain does the same.
• Breath holds are a choice, not a rule. Heavy lifts are cued with a braced breath. Under 18s default to one breath per rep, and can opt in to holding across reps with a clear instruction to stop the moment they feel light-headed.
• Volume is capped. Extra sets are only offered when every set was easy, never on jumps or sprints for under 18s, and every extra set is visible to the coach.

When an athlete under 18 sets up the app, it asks for a parent or guardian's name and a tick that you have agreed to the programme. You can see everything the coach sees: ask your child for their squad code and PIN, open the app on your own phone, and enter both in the restore box. Their whole record comes across.

Squads are invite only. There is no public sign-up, no messaging between athletes, no photos, no leaderboard and nothing public. Your child's name is visible only to their coach.

• What is kept: first name, age, bodyweight, height, the goal they chose, injuries they tick, sessions done with weights and reps, how each set felt, readiness check-ins, sprint times, and an email address only if they choose to give one.
• What is not kept: no location, no camera recordings or photos (the timing gates look at the camera picture and throw it away; a photo put on a share card stays on the phone; a coach who films a run on the timing start phone keeps that clip on their own phone, and it is never sent to Sprint Squad), no contacts, no advertising identifiers. There is no tracking inside the app. These public pages use Google Analytics so we can see whether anyone reads them; the app itself does not.
• Who sees it: the athlete, on any device they restore with their code and PIN, and their coach. The coach puts each athlete in a squad, and the athlete sees their squad's name. Nothing is shared with anyone else unless the athlete ticks it. A separate tick, off by default, allows anonymised use of training data to improve the programme.
• Leaderboards, only if ticked: an athlete can choose to show their results on their squad's leaderboard, and separately on the board for every squad. It shows first name and initial with sprint times, jumps, sessions and most improved. Under 18, lifting maxes are never shown, and the parent or guardian's agreement at set-up covers the leaderboard too. Untick it in Profile at any time and they are off the board.
• Where it lives: on the athlete's own phone first, and on a private server we rent from our hosting company, Hostinger, kept in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, protected by the squad code and a PIN the athlete chooses. The coach cannot see the PIN and can reset it if it is forgotten.
• How much data it uses: almost none. The app is smaller than one photo and is stored on the phone after the first load; each session then sends a few kilobytes. It works with no signal and syncs later.
• Deleting it: Profile, then Export my data, then Remove me from this phone, at any time. To remove the server copy as well, ask the coach, who can delete an athlete from the coach page. Both take effect immediately.
• Your rights: Sprint Squad is run by Vern Holden. Under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 you can ask to see anything we hold about you or your child, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted: email vern@takiconsulting.nz.

Ask the coach who invited your child. If that is Vern, email vern@takiconsulting.nz. Inside the app there is a "Tell us what to fix" box on the Today page that goes straight to the coach, and parents are welcome to use it.