What's Your AQ? The Framework Behind Lifelong Athletic Development
- AQ STRONG
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
What is Athletic Quotient?
Athletic Quotient (AQ) is a framework for measuring overall athleticism through a single integrated score. Rather than focusing on one quality (such as strength, speed, or endurance), it evaluates multiple physical attributes and combines them into a broader picture of athletic capability.
The 3 Layers of Athletic Quotient
Layer 1: Potential — Suppleness
Focus: Vitality The foundation for movement quality and efficiency.
Key components:
Mobility
Flexibility
Coordination
Balance
Soft tissue health
Purpose: Enables effortless, graceful, and unrestricted movement. A higher level of suppleness supports better technique, injury prevention, and the ability to learn and perform athletic skills effectively.
Layer 2: Capacity — Robustness Focus: Fitness
The ability to tolerate and sustain physical demands.
Key components:
Functional strength
Cardiovascular fitness
Endurance / Stamina
Body Composition
Purpose: Allows an individual to maintain performance under physical stress, recover effectively, and handle training loads without excessive fatigue or breakdown.
Layer 3: Expression — Explosiveness Focus: Performance
The ability to convert physical potential and capacity into athletic performance.
Key components:
Strength
Power
Elasticity
Speed
Agility
Purpose: Determines how effectively someone can produce force, move quickly, change direction, and perform explosive athletic actions.
What is an AQ Profile?
An AQ Profile shows the relative strengths and weaknesses across the three layers—Potential, Capacity, and Expression.
Instead of only providing a total AQ score, the profile reveals:
Which athletic qualities are most developed
Which areas may be limiting performance
How balanced an individual's athletic development is
Where training should be focused to achieve specific goals
How AQ Guides Your Training
The AQ framework is built on one core principle: your training should be aligned with both your current AQ Profile and your personal goals. No two AQ Profiles are the same, so no two training plans should be either. Your profile, combined with your personal goals, shapes a strategy built specifically for you.
Live well: prioritise suppleness and robustness for healthy, resilient movement
Move freely: focus on mobility, coordination and balance
Perform better: develop all three layers, with emphasis on explosiveness and the demands of your sport
Monitoring Progress: The AQ Cycle
Progress is built through consistency and smart adjustment, not guesswork.
Reassess your AQ every 8–12 weeks to track progress. Review your full training strategy every 3–6 months to stay aligned with your goals.
The cycle is simple: Assess → Train → Reassess → Adjust.
In summary, Athletic Quotient is a holistic measure of athleticism built around three interconnected layers:
Layer | Quality | Focus |
Potential | Suppleness | Vitality: Mobility, flexibility, coordination, balance |
Capacity | Robustness | Fitness: Strength, endurance, energy systems, tissue health |
Expression | Explosiveness | Performance: Speed, agility, reaction, power, elasticity |
Your AQ Profile maps these qualities to identify strengths and weaknesses, helping you design and adjust a personalised training strategy for lifelong health, movement quality or athletic performance.
Start Your AQ Journey
A personalised training strategy begins with understanding where you are today. Book a consultation with one of our coaches and we will assess your AQ Profile to build a training plan tailored to your current athleticism and your goals.
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