If you find yourself reading this, you are probably looking for some direction on how to pick a program that is right for you. You may even be looking for some guidance on writing your own program. Maybe you are even a fellow coach looking for some different insight on how to best handle your athletes programming. Whichever situation you may be in, you have come to the right place!

Picking the right program or programming for yourself can sometimes be overwhelming as there are so many resources out there. Listed below I have mapped out some basic steps to follow when trying to make sense of it all!

Now, let’s get to the nitty gritty.

 

   Step 1: Identify Your Goals

 

The last thing we want to do is walk aimlessly into a program with no real intention hoping that maybe it will work. The first thing we must do is ask ourselves what exactly it is we want to accomplish. Do we want to increase our squat 1RM? Do we want to lose weight? Do we want to increase our work capacity? All goals will be individual to each athlete, so the best practice is to sit down with yourself or with your client and begin to define what exactly their goals are. This will help you find where to start your framework.

 

   Step 2: Break Your Ultimate Goal Into Smaller Objectives

 

Now, we all know that none of this is going to happen overnight. A question I get from a lot of athletes is “How do I stay motivated?”.  This question always astounds me because if we are seeing progress, why is it so hard for the athlete to stay motivated? I find the reason being a lot of times is that they are too focused on the final goal as apposed to taking the steps necessary to meet those same goals. We have to break those big achievements down into smaller bite sized pieces. If today we may not have hit that new 1RM, but our 3×3 @ 85% last week was an RPE 8 whereas this week, it felt more like an RPE 7, THAT is an accomplishment! That shows progress!  That shows us that we are getting stronger and that shows us that we are on the right track. It’s all about taking baby steps. So take those larger goals and map out the smaller achievements you would like to hit along the way. This is key to recognizing progress.

 

   Step 3: Find/Create a Program Built Around Your Goals

 

Now that we have an understanding of what exactly we want to accomplish, it’s time to build a program that caters to those specific aspirations. If we are looking to increase our 1RM’s, we should focus more of our training on the specific movement. We wouldn’t want to primarily focus on long jump if we are looking to bench more. It all comes down to specificity. If you want to squat more, then your training needs to be focused around the squat movement. If you would like to deadlift more, then your training would need to be focused around the deadlift movement.  The biggest thing here is to NOT overthink the process. Focus on your goals and the steps needed to achieve them.

 

   Step 4: Start Training

 

       “Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.” -Morris Chang

Now that we have created our program, it’s time for us to start training. We have put so much effort this far by paving the road to our goals. It’s okay to feel nervous at this point. If you ask most athletes starting out, they would probably say that they were nervous too when they started. It’s a different feeling when you make the decision to build yourself a stronger tomorrow. Stick with it. Once the training starts and the wheels start turning, there is no stopping what you can do. A key practice that will help us with the next step is to track our training sessions. Everything from the total amount of volume in a given training session, to how we feel physically and mentally before and after our training sessions, to even our bodyweight, etc, as these are all factors when it comes to analyzing our data on the road to success.

 

   Step 5: Make Adjustments

 

If I were to sit here and tell you that I had the perfect program written for you, I would be a flat out liar. Every single athlete has their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Some athletes can take more volume than others while some athletes can handle higher percentages better than others. Some athletes may even have the middle ground between the two and  that is the beauty of coaching/programming. It’s up to us to be able to recognize when our framework needs adjustments. If we start to feel consistently fatigued in training, miss reps or miss sets, we should probably take a step back and analyze our volume load for specific movements and dial back. On the flip side, if we walk out of every training session underwhelmed and feel as if there wasn’t much of a challenge, maybe we can take advantage of some higher intensity work. All programs are subject to change whether due to training load, outside stress or even prioritizing personal life. don’t be afraid to make changes as this is key to staying healthy and motivated.

 

   Step 6: Test Your Progress

 

We have created our program, done the work, made the adjustments along the way, now it is time to test ourselves. No it’s not a written test. What I mean by test is for us to see how far we have come and to see how much closer to our goals we are. This is all dependent on what your goals were for when you started.  We can do this many ways. We can do this by training for our new 1RM’s in the gym if we have ample support for spotters. Another way to do the same thing is to sign up for a powerlifting meet. This provides a stage in front of many supportive people that want to see you do your best. Whatever you wanted to accomplish when you started this journey is what we will want to test at the end. Nobody’s goal is the same so there will never be only one way for you to see how far you have come.

 

   Step 7: Repeat

 

By this point, we have mapped our plan, trained hard and reached our goals that we originally set out to achieve! Congratulations! Lots of hard work and dedication has gone into making this a success and you should be proud of yourself! But now you may think what’s next? I did what I set out to do so now what? If your asking yourself these questions I have one question for you.

Do you want to play again?

Surely by now you have tasted success and I know for a fact, it’s addicting. So what is stopping you from doing it again? We do the same thing in all other aspects of our life trying to get better and better. It makes us feel accomplished knowing that we have put in hard work and gotten something out of it. So let’s do it again! Follow the same process, identify your goals, break them down into smaller steps, formulate your plan, adapt to your surroundings/performance and overcome those goals once more! This can be applied to every aspect of your life.

 

Hopefully this guide has helped take some of the load off your shoulders and made the programming process a bit easier on you. It can be stressful at times, but I assure you that if you power through and stick with it, you will thank yourself later.

As an added bonus for those the have visited the forum, below I have included a 4 week volume training block to help you get the wheels turning for your program design!

We currently have 5 programs listed in our program library that you can subscribe to as well! That adds up to over 50 weeks of training! (A WHOLE YEARS WORTH)

You can find our curated Program Library at this link: tts.programs.app/

Click here to apply for coaching! Coaching Application

 

4 Week Program Template

 

Here’s to a stronger tommorow!

 

Stronger Together

Stronger. Every. Day