Program Design: The Importance of Tracking Workouts

           Do you really need to follow a program to get results from your workouts? If you are a personal trainer like myself, likely at one point in time or another, you've had a client that struggles to follow the program you create for them. Even though I have now learned the importance of following a program and see the importance of doing so at one point in time, I actually really struggled with this concept. It's not that I didn't have a program, but whenever I would find a well-designed program online, instead of following it, I would go meh, not enough I need to do more and add like a hundred different exercises to it. Finally, I learned about maximum recoverable volume and intensity management and smart program design and surprise, I got way better results. In this article, I'm not going to cover how to design a program but rather answer the question above of whether you need to follow a program and the importance of tracking your workouts and do you need to do? I am going to compare the two different program styles I use of structured programming and loose structure with tracking. After that, I will dive into practical tools you can use for clients that want to follow a structured program but struggle with it. To close off the article, I will discuss different goals and the need for structure or flexibility in exploring other case studies to gauge what would work best for your clients or your clients. This article will provide you with the practical skills to help choose a programming style either as a coach for your clients or just as someone who creates a program for themselves.

           The first style of programming I use as a coach is structured programming. Structured programming is when you have a set document that outlines all of the exercises, sets, reps and anything else you want to outline set out for yourself or your clients. I like to include in programming other than exercises, sets, and reps rest time, intensity, and weight tracking system. The tools used in a program will change depending on your coaching style, but these are all examples of tools that can help you structure your program to achieve the goal you're seeking to achieve. I typically use Microsoft Word and add charts or Excel to make these types of programs. Typically you want to structure with a program timeframe in mind to continue using exercises that you've selected even if the sets, reps, intensities, and rest time change within this timeframe. I personally like to use either a four-week or eight-week programming style based on the client's needs and goals I'm programming for.  I typically use four week programs for my non- powerlifting clients and eight week programs for my powerlifting clients.

           I find that this programming style works best for clients that enjoy structure and stability. This works best for someone with the personality type that likes tracking, numbers and the structure of knowing what they are doing week to week.  I would also say that this is the programming style I use the most because it gives me the most control and feedback that influences my ability to help someone achieve specific goals. Some clients have more general goals, and that okay most people think that goals have to be super detailed and in general, I agree that the more specific a goal is, the more attainable it is to work towards, but what trainers sometimes forget is that these aren't our goals these are our client's goals and if they decide that they don't want to make their goals more specific than our job is to support them anyway. If I have a client with a very specific goal like I want to increase my deadlift from 300lbs to 400lbs, my job as their coach is to help build the best program to achieve this. With a more structured program, I get a better feedback loop of what works for that individual and what doesn't. This allows me to reflect on a program and use that feedback to improve my coaching abilities in getting the individual the results they want. This is something you just do not get as great of a grasp with more flexible programming. However, some places where more structured programming can fail are with clients that prefer things to keep changing cause they find doing the same thing week to week to be boring and mind-numbing. Clients who have more general goals and aren't as focused on reaching a very specific goal and clients that want to achieve a great number of things. For example, a Cross Fitter wanting to excel in many areas of fitness to a high level. 

So with encountering these struggles, I've had to ask myself how do I work around these struggles; do I just use flexible programming or is there still a way to continue using more structured programming? For the clients that get bored very quickly, flexible programming is definitely a better option, in my opinion. However, if you would like to continue using a structured program, you can do a few things. I would suggest rotating the exercises used in either a two or three-week rotation (i.e. week one squats bench deadlifts, week two lunges, overhead press and hex bar deadlifts week three same as week one, week four same as week two). Another way to work with this is to program movements instead of specific exercises and track which exercise you use for each movement each week. For clients with less particular goals, for example, just wanting to be generally fitter, flexible programming may help them enjoy the workouts more because they are doing a wider variety of movements and exercises. Either programming style is sufficient for these people. It more so depends on their personality type and what they like. Clients that want to achieve a more considerable amount of things and skills like Cross fitters are definitely better suited for flexible programming. They need to learn and practice many skills; however, you could still use a more structured program if you were to break down the number of times you wanted to practice each skill with these clients each month and create a monthly program that covers that. So now that I've made it clear how to work around continuing to use structured programming for situations better suited for flexible programming let's talk about what structured programming is.

           As per my own description, flexible training would be training without a pre-set plan in place for training. This can mean that training can be changed day to day and week to week based on what you feel the person's needs are. An important note is even with a structured plan as a coach, you can still change to workout on the day of, but sometimes this doesn't happen because of the obligation to stick to the plan that usually isn't even thought about. Still, a good coach will catch this and be able to change on the fly. I use this for clients that I am unsure how many times a week I will see them or work out. For clients who get bored and need constant change in their workouts or simply look for growth elsewhere. These are usually clients that do all of their workouts in person with me and don't work out on their own outside their time with me. However I have used this method with clients for a workout on their own and have sent them workouts. When the client shows up for their session or texts them their workout, I assess how they're doing, their energy levels, what is sore and what isn't. I create a workout on the spot and track what we do to look back the next time we do the same movements. I can progress these movements in some type of way.

           Struggles I've found with this programming style is that it's harder to identify what's working and what not working in a program, and it's harder to track progress for remote clients you don't see in person. With not knowing what's working and what's not in the programming, this is a little harder to figure out, but as long as you keep track of your exercise selection sets and reps, you can refer back to your past programming problem-solve to figure out what went wrong. As far as remote clients and progress tracking, this all comes down to communication and ensuring that your client is communicating with you how everything is going with the workouts and providing you with feedback. Another note for flexible programming is that even knowing the workouts change day to day and week to week, tracking is still an essential part of this programming's success. I often see trainers or people who are self-programming bring their clients through a workout and never even write any notes on what is happening with training. Don't get me wrong; I do think it is possible to get results without tracking; however, if you are not monitoring and you encounter a problem, you have nothing to refer back to solve the problem. When you are working with helping pay clients get results, you cant leave it to chance.

When creating a client program, it's crucial to have practical tools to solve different clients' issues. For example, a problem I've encountered in the past while programming is clients who are on structured programs but want more autonomy over their programming. Typically their users create programs for themselves and can struggle to give over the reigns of their programming cause they're used to doing their own workouts and picking the exercises they enjoy doing. A strategy that I have found very useful for dealing with this is programming in "choose your own exercises."  This can help them feel that sense of control in their programming that they are looking for. It's also important to continually ask the client for feedback on how they think about the program and make sure they're having fun with the program because if they're not, they simply just won't do it in many cases. Having strategies to help work with these clients will help, but good communication with them about why they are doing what they're doing and how they feel about it will always be key.

The other practical tool I use for programming is varied sets and reps. Certain clients, if faced with the same sets of reps, intensities week to week, will start to become bored and feel this is monotonous. By varying sets and rep schemes week to week, you can help keep these clients engaged and put in the effort needed to progress towards their goals. This is easier accomplished in a flexible training program because you just change it and track it; however, when creating a structured program, this becomes a little more challenging but still doable. Just make sure that your program template gives you the ability to change sets reps and intensities on a week to week basis. I struggled with early in my career as I created my program template to keep the sets and reps the same for a full eight-week block with only changes in intensities. Eventually, I adjusted my templates to accommodate this and created a second eight-week template that made it much easier.

Which program style you use for yourself or each client you train can also largely be determined by the client's goals. The psychology and the plans will be the huge factors that dictate which programming style is best for what you are trying to achieve.

Strength gain is a common goal among gym-goers and just people who want to increase ease of life. Gaining strength can simply be defined as the ability to do load or work within a movement or do the same amount of load or work with less difficulty. So in a little simpler terms, you can lift more weight or lift that weight more time or lift that weight easier. In terms of everyday life, this goal really translates out to ease of life; if there is a 50-pound box down in your basement and you need to move it upstairs to unpack it, and it takes every last bit of your energy and strength to get it up the stair. You plop it down on the ground and then lay down on the floor, gasping and dying for the next half hour before being able . That's not very efficient compared to being able to do that task with ease, and that's the real benefit of getting stronger! So how do we program to get stronger? Flexible or Structured programming?

Well, honestly, either is probably fine! If a client wants to generally get stronger for daily life situations like the situation mentioned above, either programming style will work. It really comes down to the client's psychology and what you think is better for their personality. As long as you track and ensure that you are increasing the loads or work overtime and can handle those loads easier, lifting those boxes up the stairs will be an absolute breeze. What if the person wants to be a high-level strength athlete and compete in a sport like a powerlifting or Olympic lifting? In this case, I do think that structured programming has a slight edge over flexible programming. I believe that a high level in the sport can be met from either programming style, but when you are trying to get better at specific movements to the highest level, variation isn't always the most useful thing. I find it best to pick accessories and stick with them for at least four to eight weeks to determine the effectiveness, which fits the structured programming model a little better. With the training being more focused and not needing to coach as much variety in helping your client get to that goal giving them a structured program will most likely be more optimal for them and easier for you to track their success with different exercises in the long term.

Though a separate goal, part of getting stronger is gaining muscle. Hypertrophy related goals share a lot of similarities but do have some differences from strength goals. Let us discuss it!

Muscle Hypertrophy or muscle gain is training to add lean muscle tissue to your body. While getting stronger is a huge driver of muscle gain, a fundamental difference is that the rep ranges used for strength gain can be any rep ranges. Studies have shown that specific rep ranges are more optimal for gaining muscle. Now that is not to say that you won't gain muscle if you're not in the optimal ranges, but that's probably where you want to do most of your work to gain muscle. Another thing to consider is that when you are trying to gain muscle volume, one of the critical components is training volume. I will detail training volume in my next Article, but training volume can be used by thinking about time under tension and the number of hard sets. Why might someone want to gain muscle? Muscle gain as a goal can have many purposes in someone's life, both practical and aesthetical. Starting functional muscle gain related goals! The ageing process is after you hit a certain point in time, cells within your body start to die, which includes muscle cells. As you age and your muscle cells start to deteriorate, building new muscle cells through muscle hypertrophy can help slow down the process. Muscle's function with the body is to move joints, so not having enough muscle to perform function could lead to moving in older age.

Building muscle can help you continue to be able to move into older age. Also, functionally the bigger you are, the more likely you are to scare off predators like bears #alpha haha. Now aside from building muscle's functional purposes, adding muscle to your body can also make you look better. Now what is "good looking" is strictly contextual to what you feel looks good to you. If you feel that you will be better looking if you get bigger, adding muscle can help you achieve that (be warned, though, this takes wayyyyyy longer than you would expect it). If you want to look smaller or leaner or toned, some people might say building muscle is a larger part of this than you might think. Looking more toned is achieved by changing your body composition by decreasing fat mass and increasing muscle mass to change your body's composition and shape. Now that we know a little more about muscle building let's talk about the best programming style for muscle hypertrophy.

While either programming style could work for this muscle hypertrophy as long as volume and intensities are kept in mind, a structured approach holds a few more benefits, especially when looking at more extreme ends of the muscle gain spectrum. The more muscle you want to gain, the more that program feedback can affect your results. A structured program makes it easier to track volume. Now I've heard volume defined in a few different ways; I've heard sets times reps times weight, I've heard time under tension, I've heard several hard sets. I think the truth lies somewhat with all of these things the number of hard sets you do and the time under tension you experience during those hard sets. It's hard to tell what effect a certain volume will have on muscle hypertrophy. Still, If you are serious about building as much muscle as possible, you should track your training volumes to give you feedback and use that feedback to make changes that you believe will make you more effective in your muscle growth. If you aren't as serious and just want to tone or build a little functional muscle and build a better physique, you probably don't need to worry about it. It's still Important, but as long as you know you're doing a moderate amount of volume and having a high enough intensity and you remain consistent, you will build muscle over time. You may not be a pro bodybuilder, but you will build an impressive physique. With that said, structured or flexible approaches can be taken to achieve this.

One of the most common goals among gym-goers in today's day and age is fat loss. In a day and age where many places in the world are plagued with obesity, many people turn to the gym to help them lose weight. This isn't a flawed strategy because exercising creates good synergy for your nutrition, and resistance training has good supportive benefits to weight loss. However, with that said, ultimately, weight loss comes down to nutrition. So which programming style is better to support weight loss? Whichever one works better for the person and allows them to exercise as frequently as they can with their lifestyle. I have found that it's easier for me to get clients exercising more frequently without me, which better supports weight loss with structured programs. For example, if a client works out with me in person twice a week but also wants to workout twice a week on their own. With the flexible approach, you end writing out their workouts every week instead of every 4-8 weeks. This could make it harder for some coaches to support this person because of your plate's extra workload. If this, then a more structured program is the better approach. However, if you don't mind the extra work, either approach is fine. Another strategy around this is the extra days the client is not with you. You can assign them to do group workout classes or extra cardio at the end of the day. If they're moving and doing the right things with their nutrition, they will get the results they want, and you are doing your job as their coach. Simple tasks like walking goals or step goals can also help implement into programming for fat loss to help aid in the process. Regardless of programming style, if you want to help people lose weight and fat help them find the best nutritional strategy for them.

Endurance training is a common type of training used by endurance athletes such as runners, bikers, swimmers and fighters. If you are training for one of these sports, a mix of muscular strength, Muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance is needed. Starting with cardiovascular endurance, I suggest that this be more regulated and structured for fatigue management purposes. In the past, I have found a lot of my clients who are already training in these things have cardio programming they like to follow and use combinations of Rate of perceived exertion, heart rate, and distance to regulate and track what they are doing. They can also vary their cardio training using the different rate of perceived exertions, heart rates and distances on different days to build up their cardio. With this said if you are working with a client that isn't currently doing their own cardio programming but training to be a endurance athlete of some kind, you can help program a cardio program that helps them optimize their training so that they're not just running to run or biking to bike. You can help them track and get better month to month and work toward their cardio goals. This is not necessary for someone that just likes running or biking but more so for athletes that want to compete in these cardio-based sports.

Now, as a strength coach, how do you help these endurance athletes with their strength training? Do you use a flexible or structured approach? I think the answer again here is both! Whichever fits their lifestyle better, however, in this case, I'm actually going to argue that a flexible approach may be slightly better. Hear me out here if you are training an endurance athlete like, say, a runner or a boxer, their first and primary objective is their direct skill training and cardio. For a runner, their primary goal is getting better at running. A boxer's primary concern is boxing and practicing their sport (unless maybe it's the off-season). Therefore strength training becomes more of a secondary concern to complement their running or boxing. With the skill work being cardio being the athlete's primary focus, they will put the most energy and effort towards it. The amount of energy they have left in the bank to put towards strength training can be variable. Flexible training is better structured to be able to handle the variability in recovery. If you would still like to use a more structured approach, it's still very doable as long as an element of flexibility is built to handle the variability. Tools to help accomplish this would be optional rest or training days based on how the athlete feels built into the program and RPE scales to allow the athlete to adjust the weights they're lifting based on how they're feeling.

The last goal I want to talk about is maintenance. Maintenance is an interesting fitness goal and one that I personally did not believe in for a long time; I did not see the point in it. Maintenance is a fitness goal that refers to simply just maintaining the results you have already acquired. You are not trying to get stronger, build muscle, and lose fat, but you're also not trying to lose any strength, lose muscle, or gain any fat. I did not see the point where my thinking was why wouldn't you want to improve in some area at a given point. However, I think that's its okay to go through periods of maintenance and want to stay the same and not lose the results you've worked so hard for while simultaneously having workouts be less physically taxing and less of a priority where you can spend more time working on other areas of your life. Maintenance is your goal if you've been working out for twenty years. You just want to keep what you've acquired. Still, you have no resolve to improve in any areas anymore (not to say if you've been working out for twenty years, you can still improve if you want to). Another thought could be maybe you're a business person who is putting their primary focus in life to build their business and just wants to stay fit while doing so. Listen, I'm not here to tell you what your goals should be, but I will say if this is you and maintenance is what you want to do, that's absolutely okay.

To program for maintenance I strongly suggest a more flexible programming approach, although it is still possible to make a more structured approach if it's preferred. The Flexible approach is suggested cause the person trying to maintain may not be able to have a set workout schedule, and the amount of time they can allocate may change on a week-to-week basis. One week they may have 15 minutes one day, and an hour another day next week, they may have two hours a day every day. I suggest a more flexible approach because it allows you to choose exercises, sets, reps, and intensities based on how you're feeling on a given day. Without a specific training goal, it can be very easy to lose motivation and not want to work out, so if your goal is to maintain, you may have draw motivation to workout from other sources. For some, this might be keeping the workouts from getting stale by choosing exercises, sets, reps and intensities that excite them on that given day. With a structured program, if you want to go this route, there are a few strategies to help it better suit maintenance. The first thing I would do is pull back all expectations and just say that many of the workouts on the program as you get to in a week are just fine. For example, the workout may have five workouts, but they only get two done in a week. Simply start the next week where you left off for the workouts. The next strategy I would use is making the workouts full body. That way, if they only get one workout in a week, that's fine because every muscle group is still used, even if it's minimally. It will be better to maintain results than working one muscle group really hard and not working any others at all. Finally, I would have other alternatives ready for workouts. For example, if a full workout cant is completed from the program, but you have 15 minutes to workout having alternate mini-workouts planned or using that time to go for a walk will go a long way. As a coach, it is vital to communicate with your client regularly and make sure they know if this is the case to reach out to you to provide an alternative.

Hopefully, now you feel better educated about the differences between structured and flexible programming and how to better use it! As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat(although saying that out loud what a dark saying wow!). Thank you for reading and watching out for my next article, where I will talk about different training principles and how to use them.