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Step 4: Plan Backward and Execute Forward

Time is a critical factor in programming decisions for clients, and three key questions must be addressed: the timeline for goals, the client's training availability per week, and the duration of each training session. Many common training plans fail because they do not account for the typical client's limited availability, often resulting in the need to redesign programs. Effective programming should prioritize key variables such as repetitions, sets, and loading before exercise selection to ensure optimal adaptations.

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7 views1 page

Step 4: Plan Backward and Execute Forward

Time is a critical factor in programming decisions for clients, and three key questions must be addressed: the timeline for goals, the client's training availability per week, and the duration of each training session. Many common training plans fail because they do not account for the typical client's limited availability, often resulting in the need to redesign programs. Effective programming should prioritize key variables such as repetitions, sets, and loading before exercise selection to ensure optimal adaptations.

Uploaded by

Whooper Gamestor
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Time is a forgotten factor.

We often assume the client’s available time without


asking. This is a big mistake.
There are three time-based questions that factor strongly into our programming
decisions:
1. How long do we have to reach the stated goal?
2. How many days per week is the client available to train?
3. On these days, how many hours are available for training?
The answer to the first question will usually be included in step 1 of our
programming process.
The second question must be asked and not assumed. You can write the world’s
greatest five-day per-week training plan, complete with recovery days and the
perfect cardio sessions, but what do you do if your client only has two to three days
to train each week? You’re going to have to tear up your plan and start over.
The third and final question is critical as well. What if you plan for one-hour
sessions but your client only has a half hour to train at each session? If we’re lucky,
we get an hour per session, two to three days per week with our clients, and
anything more than that is gravy but not typical. This is the reality of our busy
world.
One of the reasons that typical bodybuilding splits don’t work for most of our
clients is that the frequency of exposure to the movement patterns, and therefore the
muscle groups, isn’t enough to drive the adaptions that we are seeking. The old
three days on, one day off program that bodybuilders use just doesn’t cut the
mustard for the typical client since they don’t have six days per week available to
invest in training.
Step 4: Plan Backward and Execute
Forward
Start with the end in mind. We previously stated that the biggest mistake rookie
programmers make with regards to programming is that they start with exercise
selection and go forward from there. We would consider this to be a suboptimal
approach; there are more important factors to consider prior to exercise choices to
achieve the adaptations we are seeking.
Here are the key variables that we manipulate in our training programs (listed in
order of importance):
Repetitions
Sets
Loading
Tempo
Rest Periods
Exercise Selection (most individualized)

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