Cosgrove Alwyn - Secrets of Successful Program Design: A How-To Guide for Busy Fitness Professionals

At our gym, Results Fitness, we are known for writing programs, not just workouts. But what do we mean by this? What is the difference between a program and a workout?

A program is an overall training plan that is written based on a particular goalplan and goal being the operative words. A single workout (or training session) is a part of this plan, and the structured sequencing of multiple workouts, or daily training sessions is a portion of programming. A workout is simply what you do on any given training day. Looked at by itself, without respect to the rest of the overall plan, the individual workout doesnt amount to much.

Periodization is a term that has varying definitions, but most would agree that it means using structured planning and manipulation of training variables to achieve a desired training response over a certain time period.

When creating a program, we always look at the big picture first, figuring out the clients goals, and then estimating how long it will take to reach them. From there, we create an overall long-term periodization plan, or macrocycle. This plan can cover a minimum of 8 to 12 weeks for specific short-term goals, but it can also encompass 16 weeks up to a year. Once we have determined the time frame, we can get more specific and divide the schedule into mesocycles, which are typically 4- to 6-week blocks of time. From there, we add increasingly detailed plans for specific training weeks, or microcycles. Finally, we divide it even further and design each individual training day (or workout), for which we choose exercises, tempos, and rest periods.

We begin with the big picture in mind, then break things down to the individual workout level. Novice coaches and trainers will typically start in the opposite manner, with a mentality of What exercise am I going to do today? They will then design a random workout for a particular day using their favorite exercise without regard for the long-term plan. This is an ineffective approach; we want to attain the desired results by executing a properly considered plan and not achieve these results as a possible side effect from a string of random workouts.

As a busy fitness professional, you will soon realize that programming for clients will take up a large portion of your time and energyespecially if you are trying to cook from scratch each time you create a training program. You will quickly learn that the lack of a programming system will cause you to repeat mistakes. Hint: You need a recipe. So, the big question is How do you create a sound programming system? Rest assured, you are in the correct place.

SYSTEM is an acronym that we talk about at our gym, Results Fitness. What does it stand for? There are several versions, but the one we like best is this: Save Yourself Substantial Time, Energy, and Money. Mark Verstegen, founder of EXOS (a health and human performance company widely renowned for their systems-based approach), has also stated that one of the most important aspects of using systems is to help us avoid making repeated mistakes. Mistakes are always going to happen. They are a big part of how we learn, but we want to avoid continually repeating the same mistakes, because they will become massive problems for us moving forward.

Successful businesses rely upon the ability to implement and execute systems. In some of his lectures about systems, Alwyn has mentioned how a McDonalds Big Mac is the same in Los Angeles as it is in China. You can trust that a Big Mac will be the same wherever you are because they make it the same way. Im sure that youre thinking that you can get a better hamburger somewhere else, but the point isnt about the quality of the hamburgerit is the fact that McDonalds can faithfully reproduce a desired result because they use a system; they dont try to reinvent the Big Mac with each and every one they make. Winging it is a recipe for disaster; following a system is a recipe for success. For this reason, fitness programming must also be system based.