The Pitfall of Perfectionism (Q & A: Writing Training Programs, Part 5)

Okay, I'm almost done with this seemingly never-ending series, I promise. I only have today's post - to cover an often overlooked component of program design - and I'll finish off the series on Wednesday with a few "blueprint" suggestions. Moving on, let me briefly touch on an achilles heel of mine....

5. Perfectionism

I'm currently reading a phenomenal book on writing, titled Bird by Bird (thank you Tony Gentilcore for the recommendation), and the author, Anne Lamott, touches on this very topic:

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while doing it."

Now, before I go any further, take a moment to read that again and really let it sink in. While I'm currently addressing the writing of training plans, the advice above can easily be applied to any facet of life for those of you who are perfectionists (you know who you are).

Be it your work habits, your possessions, your relationships, the obsessive believe that you need to be perfect can, and will, utterly destroy you.

Perfectionism, in my opinion, is analogous to fire. It can be very useful provided it's retrained to its intents and purposes, but all-consuming and incredibly destructive if it's not contained. A small fire can be used to forge and refine a steel blade, or provide warmth, but it can also bring your entire house to the ground should it spiral out of control.

Yes, I actually did just come up with that analogy myself, and yes, you may steal it.

My office space isn't necessarily the neatest, I don't wash my car every other day (unlike my brother), and I don't line up everything in my home at 90 degrees to each other. Heck, maybe all those things are more closely related to OCD than perfectionism....I don't really know....but the point is that there are areas of my life in which I'm a perfectionist. In high school, one of these areas was my schoolwork (choosing homework and studying over hanging out with friends, anyone?), which, over time, translated over to this obsessive need to perfect anything I take honest time out of my day to complete that involves a pencil, paper, computer, and that little thing they like to call the "cerebral cortex."

My high school life basically consisted of homework, studying, reading book after book, and lacrosse practice (I've heard getting outside and remaining active is important for cognitive function).

Helloooo to good grades and cruising into the college of my choosing, but goodbye to time with friends, overall sense of enjoyment, and my hopes of becoming globally ranked in Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past speedruns.

Needless to say, there was a price to pay for my perfectionism, and I missed out on some pretty important stuff (I'm referring to Zelda rankings, of course, not time with friends).

Where was I again? Oh yeah, perfectionism and writing programs.....

Look, when it comes to designing workouts and resistance training programs, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT. I'm speaking from personal experience here, as I used to spend an unholy amount of time writing programs. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you how long I spent on on a 2x/week training plan, let alone a 5x/week training plan, as it'd be embarrassing to recount.

I would practically torment myself with finding the perfect set-rep scheme for each and every exercise, the most flawless waving of volume and intensity, and the best sequencing of exercises. Guess what? In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.

I realized that I was, in fact, doing my athletes a disservice, because it was taking time away from continued education, and I remain a bit emotionally distant during their training sessions because I would still be thinking about the program design. And you know what I discovered in the process, that was a bit of an "ah-ha" moment for me?

Good coaching will trump "perfect" program design, any day of the week.

A good coach will help someone get more out of a freaking bodyweight split squat than many poor trainers can provide someone during a bilateral squat with a barbell. Along a similar vein, an excellent coach can help someone receive a better training effect from PUPPing correctly than a bad coach/trainer walking someone through pushups (at least what they're calling a pushup).

And, you know what? I can't tell you how many times I've written a program for someone, only for them to walk in the following day telling me they tweaked their back, shoulder, or knee, and I've then had to modify virtually the entire thing anyway, right there on the spot. Or, they have an unexpected business trip, which is going to throw the workout split off schedule. Or, their girlfriend just broke up with them and they had their computer stolen. All of these things are going to require program-modification on the fly.

The point in all of this isn't to tell you to stop working hard in your job, or to fail to give your clients and athletes everything you've got. But there is a very thick line between giving other people your best, and allowing your perfectionism to spin out of control like a wild fire, negatively affecting your own mind, along with those around you.

Q & A: Writing Training Programs, Part 4: Try Things Yourself, and Borrow and Steal

Q. One thing I was wondering, and maybe it’d be a topic to write about … how do you come up with workouts?? Do you make stuff up?? Have a “grab-bag” of moves and pull out of that?? Borrow and modify from other trainers??  I always wonder where trainers come up with new ideas.

4. Before Giving Something to an Athlete or Client, Try it Yourself

One of the things I pride myself in as a strength coach is never giving someone an exercise or program that I haven't tried myself. Well, most of the time.

DCIM100SPORT

One such instance in which I failed to do this happened a little over a year ago. I was doing the programming for Ron, who was in the middle of a "get shredded" phase. I had progressed him through the basic planking exercises, and wanted to spice things up a little. Sitting at my keyboard, Ron's excel file open and perhaps a bit too much caffeine running through my blood, I had a vision of a more challenging plank variation I wanted to give him. It was a single-arm PUPP with the feet suspended in the TRX (see picture on the right).

No, I hadn't actually tried this myself at the time, but I figured, "How hard could it be? Ron's a beast and he'll love this one."

Well, the following week, I'm on the coaching floor and I hear some laughing followed by grunts of frustration coming from the corner of the gym that Ron was using. I turn around to only to see him face down on the floor, feet suspended in the TRX, laughing a bit to himself. He then looks up at me and shouts across the gym for everyone to hear:

"Steve, have you actually TRIED this exercise, you inconsiderate, good-for-nothing, bag of fart???"

That was not verbatim.

So I stood there, stammered for a bit as everyone else around waited for my response, and then replied, "Ummm, yes of course I have....well, kinda....okay maybe I haven't actually tried it."

Come to find out, it was a pretty darn hard challenge even for me to do! I'll admit it took me a few tries to get it, as you literally have to fight for your life to prevent yourself from being barrel-rolled 180 degrees in the air and thrown onto your back.

Now, fortunately Ron is very good-humored and knows how to laugh at his own expense (he also never forgets to remind me of that fail of mine with his programming). We figured out a modification so that he could do something similar, and we moved on. He also never hurt himself in the process.

But what if you're working with someone who's not-so-good-humored? What if the athlete ends up getting hurt because you didn't try something beforehand? I really don't feel I need to explain the "why" behind trying an exercise or program out yourself before giving it to someone else, as I feel it's pretty self-explanatory.

The key is to set people up for success. Make it challenging, but at the same time ensure that you match the appropriate progression/regression to the individual so that they can see and experience themselves succeeding as opposed to failing.

And the best way to do this is to yes, practice writing programs and coach people on a regular basis, but also try everything yourself before giving it to someone. You'll discover a number of things this way:

• Some programs look MUCH easier on paper than they actually are in application
• What supersets really suck, and others that don't
• Exercise sequencing that is brilliant, and sequencing that is not-so-brilliant
• What exercises make you unnecessarily sore (that will negatively impact a subsequent training day and/or sport practice and competition)
• The ideal set and rep range depending on the movement/where it is in the program

Etc., etc., etc.

5. Yes, Borrow and Steal

You asked if I ever borrow and modify from other trainers/coaches. In a word: Absolutely, and shamelessly.

But rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you to this post by Mike Boyle (seriously, read it, it's short) as he discusses the very topic:

Should You Stick to the Recipe?

HOWEVER, remember that other strength coaches and trainers are only human. They still make mistakes, and not everything they say should be taken as pure, liquid gold.**

Following the programs of other trainers can be fantastic start (assuming you don't pick a doofus to emulate), but eventually, once you become a "chef," as Boyle said, you need to be confident in you're own program writing skills. In fact, I find myself disagreeing, on multiple occasions, with the opinions of many of the world's current "renown and expert" coaches. Does this mean these men/women are inferior and less knowledgeable than me? Of course not. But you have to be careful to avoid falling into the trap of blindly following every word they say without doing some critical thinking of your own.

Another note is, once you have taken a look at a number of trainers and coaches, only pick a few to follow. Often we quickly experience paralysis by analysis by continually looking at too much "stuff." You'll begin to spin round and round with no direction if you try to follow everyone out there.

A book that holds a special place in my heart is The New Rules of Lifting by Alwyn Cosgrove and Lou Schuler. It was the first book I read that took me away from the stupid, brought me over to the Dark Side, and opened my eyes to the beauty of good training habits. If you're brand new to the field, I highly recommend this. Is a bit of it outdated? Yeah. But if you're still programming 3 sets of 10 for everything, reading Flex magazine and Bodybuilding.com for your primarily sources of information, it's a great place to start.

If you've been in the field for a while now and/or have a solid base under you, I honestly can't recommend Easy Strength, by Dan John and Pavel, highly enough. The book is easily worth its weight in gold, and I honestly think that the price is a steal for what it provides. If you train anyone, be them elite athletes or pure newbies in the weight room, do yourself a favor and read it.

And that's it for now. I'll be back on Friday discussing the pitfall of Perfectionism. And yes, I realize we're bordering on a marathon here with this series so I promise you I'll save you from your misery soon enough.

**Unless they're the SAPT staff.

Q&A: Pre-Competition Carbohydrate Loading

Q: I have a question, Do you know or have an opinion on whether or not carb loading the night before a sports match (in this case a crew regatta/race) is beneficial?

A: This is a great question and something I haven’t considered much lately. My opinion is that carb loading is unnecessary for 99.9% of the population and is most likely to lead to gastric distress, not faster race times.

However, I’m quick to admit when a question is treading upon territory I rarely visit and this area is not my specialty. So, I consulted a couple sources to see what the research is saying.

First up, a study regarding carbohydrate loading and resistance training (The effects of carbohydrate loading on repetitive jump squat power performance.):

…only few data are available on the effects of CHO loading on resistance exercise performance. Because of the repetitive use of high-threshold motor units, it was hypothesized that the power output (power-endurance) of multiple sets of jump squats would be enhanced following a high-CHO (6.5 g CHO kg body mass(-1)) diet compared to a moderate-CHO (4.4 g CHO kg body mass(-1)) diet. Eight healthy men (mean +/- SD: age 26.3 +/- 2.6 years; weight 73.0 +/- 6.3 kg; body fat 13.4 +/- 5.0%; height 178.2 +/- 6.1 cm) participated in 2 randomly assigned counterbalanced supplementation periods of 4 days after having their free-living habitual diet monitored. The resistance exercise test consisted of 4 sets of 12 repetitions of maximal-effort jump squats using a Plyometric Power System unit and a load of 30% of 1 repetition maximum (1RM). A 2-minute rest period was used between sets. Immediately before and after the exercise test, a blood sample was obtained to determine the serum glucose and blood lactate concentrations. No significant difference in power performance existed between the 2 diets. As expected, there was a significant (p </= 0.05) decrease in power performance between the repetitions in every set. Blood lactate concentrations were significantly higher postexercise with both the high-CHO and the moderate- or lower-CHO diet, but there were no differences between conditions. The results indicated that the power output during multiple sets of maximal jump squats was not enhanced following a higher-CHO diet compared to a moderate- or lower-CHO diet. These data show that elevated carbohydrate intake is not needed to optimize a repetitive power-endurance performance when it is done as the first exercise in a workout.

The second reference I’m using is the position of the International Society of Sports Nutrition and is looking at endurance performance:

• Part of all the ergogenic effect of carbohydrate loading recorded in most studies to date could be attributed to a placebo effect (endurance athletes are typically well educated and would expect a performance boost thus introducing a psychologic bias).

• The performance-enhancing effect of carbohydrate loading is small and in real-life competition most likely only significant in influencing the finishing order among top elite-level cyclists, not “back-of-the-pack” cyclists.

• Consuming adequate carbohydrate during prolonged exercise (at least non-steady events)may be more important that glycogen supersaturation via carbohydrate loading before exercise.

Another side to the above research worth pointing out is that the control groups are always consuming PLENTY of carbohydrates already! The first study has the controls at 4.4 g CHO/kg bodyweight while the second position from the ISSN is citing a study in which the control was at 6.0 g CHO/kg bodyweight!

This brings me to my own question: What happens if you purposely deplete glycogen stores and then try to resaturate them immediately prior to a race or competition?

Recently, I noted that the strength/conditioning coach for University of Maryland’s women’s basketball team imposed a period of carbohydrate depletion to quickly establish improved glycogen sensitivity to help power them through the ACC tournament. I can’t tell you for certain if this worked, but in theory I think it’s a great approach. It’s common practice among physique athletes (i.e., bodybuilding, figure, etc.) to deplete carbohydrate stores leading up to a competition only to really load up the day of the show. The goal being to “fill out” the muscles again. This doesn’t have anything to do with athletic performance, but worth noting.

To get back to your question: no, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to carbohydrate load the night before (or even three days before) a competition. My advice would be to moderately increase carbohydrate in the hours before a race. Begin with a carbohydrate dense meal at four-hours out, a well-tolerated and significant carbohydrate dense snack at two-hours out, and then sports drink from then on.

Hope this helps!

Q & A: How to Write Resistance Training Programs, Part 3

(Note: Part 1 covered training oneself and Part 2a covered the coaching component).

3. Practice Writing Programs. Apply these programs to real people, then write more programs. Repeat x Infinity.

If you want to get better at baseball, then you practice playing baseball. If you want to get better at reading, then you practice reading. If you want to get better at writing training plans, then you.....Yep, nothing too crazy here.

Every single one of SAPT"s clients receives an individualized program specific to their needs, injury history, training history, and current physical fitness level. And, if you"re a personal trainer or strength coach, I can only hope you do the same for those under your watch.

And chances are high (read: 110% likely), that throughout your time involved in program writing, you"re going to face multiple scenarios that require you to write something other than a cookie-cutter program that works for the 90% of the healthy population.

Let"s say you need you need to write a program for one of the following scenarios. How do you do it?

• An office worker who works 60 hours a week, travels on the weekends, and only has time for two, 45-minute training sessions a week. Yet he needs to lose 40lbs and wants to improve his bench press by 15lbs?
• A baseball player online casino walking in your door telling you he has Spondylolysis (vertebral fracture)?
• A volleyball player ten weeks who just had ACL surgery 10 weeks ago?
• A female (or male) with a goal of doing their first-ever chinup?
• Someone who can"t keep his or her knees out while squatting, or someone who can"t help "shifting" to one side as they approach parallel during a squat?
• A mom who wants to get "bikini ready" for Summer, yet only has access to a home gym with limited equipment?
• A young man needing to pass a physical fitness test for US Special Forces selection and assessment?
• A 70-year old simply seeking prevent her osteopenia from morphing into full-fledged osteoporosis?
• An elite level triathlete (or mixed martial artist) that needs to get stronger but can"t afford to add any mass to his or her frame?

I ask these questions because, unless you want to do your clients a disservice, you can"t just write one program up on the chalkboard for everyone to follow. You have your own unique goals, strengths, and weaknesses, don"t you? So shouldn"t the program for you, personally, be specific to those variables and goals?

I wish I could give you a magic formula, the reality is in order to get better at writing programs you have to practice writing programs.

Currently, I have over 700 programs saved on my desktop that I"ve written for athletes and clients. Yes, some of them make me want to stab my left eye out, but I had to write program #1, #2, and #3 to get to program #700.

Program #700 took me one-third the time to write as Program #1, and at the same time is (hopefully!) much "better" and more accurate to the goals of the person it was written for.

Which is how it should be, in my opinion. If you were to flip through the programs of any good strength coach, you should see changes from their first program to their most recent one, as this reflects that they are continuing to research, they"re able to learn from their mistakes, and that they genuinely care about giving their clients and athletes they best possible training that"s in their power to do so. The best in the industry are those who recognize that the more they learn, the more they realize how much they don"t know.

Q & A: How to Write Resistance Training Programs, Part 2: Coaching

Q. One thing I was wondering, and maybe it’d be a topic to write about … how do you come up with workouts?? Do you make stuff up?? Have a “grab-bag” of moves and pull out of that?? Borrow and modify from other trainers??  I always wonder where trainers come up with new ideas.A. For those who missed Part 1, I discussed the importance of training yourself on a regular basis. Let's move on to #2 on the list....

2a. Spend Time Coaching

I don't care if it's your mom, your coworker, or your friend who wants some help getting ready for Spring Break. Just start coaching someone. The best coaches (and, thus, those typically good at writing programs), are those that have spent thousands of hours in the trenches, coaching the heck out of people.

Chris Romanow comes to mind. If you've never trained at SAPT, you're probably asking who Chris Romanow is. He hasn't published any books or articles on training, he doesn't have a Twitter, he doesn't a keep a fitness blog, doesn't send out a newsletter, and he hasn't produced any fitness products.

Yet he is one of the best coaches in the industry, hands down. He can coach people and design training plans better than anyone I know. Heck, the man could teach a freshly born giraffe how to perform a solid overhead squat.

And you know what Chris received his college degree in? NOT Exercise Science, or even in a related field. He became a great program designer, and an even better coach, not by reading some textbooks, taking a few exams, and receiving a diploma for it, but by coaching his butt off, twelve hours a day, for years on end.

He was forced to learn how to teach kids the squat pattern (including hundreds who aren't genetically gifted and couldn't pick it up, even after the hundredth six attempt), how to teach a good pushup to mothers who never weight trained in their lives, show an unmotivated 12-year old softball player how to rotate through her hips instead of her lumbar spine, to teach an arrogant 17-year old that no, he really can't really squat 400lbs to depth.

And to do this over, and over, and over, and over again with people from all walks of life and varying genetic predispositions.

I, on the other hand, did study Kinesiology/Exercise Science in college. I also had many colleagues right alongside me doing the same thing. Going to lectures, learning about muscle insertions and attachments, the sliding filament theory, force-velocity curves, motor unit force potentiation, glycolysis, yadda yadda yadda.

And you know what I find myself telling people on a weekly basis? I would trust Chris with coaching me, and writing ME a program, a thousand times more than having one of my fellow colleagues (with a B.S. in Exercise Science) coach me or write me a workout plan. No question about it. And no offense to those of you from Virginia Tech who may be reading; it just is how it is.

As strength coach Mike Robertson once put it, "Some of the best coaches in S&C are the ones you’ve never heard of, and never hear from. They’re tucked away in some remote part of the country, just kicking ass and taking names."

That's Chris. And any talent I have at writing programs and coaching others, I owe in large part to him.

My point in all that is that learning the "science of training" is completely different from practicing it in real life. And no graduate degree or Ph. D. can replace time invested learning it first-hand (wasn't it Malcolm Gladwell who articulated it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something?). It's very difficult to become proficient at program design without putting in your dues coaching others. And you can't truly appreciate this until you experience it for yourself.

I can't tell you how many times I've written what I thought to be a "perfect program" only to see it fail miserably upon implementation. And, unless you work with Olympic-level athletes, you're going to have to help countless people with quite poor movement quality (yes, even "higher level" athletes) learn to hip hinge, squat, pick things up off the ground, press things, and pull things. Correctly. And they aren't usually going to get it the first time.

Coaching teaches you a lot of things. As long as you pay attention, remain awake, stay astute, and make an effort to truly observe the feedback you're receiving (both verbal and nonverbal), you'd be surprised at how much your clients can teach you about yourself. And you will then learn to be a better program designer.

I remember, upon first becoming a personal trainer in college, I decided to take one of my clients (a soccer player) through a few sets of front squats. Easy peasy, right? Except that his knees persistently collapsed inward during the bottom half of his squat. So me, being the brilliant trainer I was, continually barked at him to drive his knees out. Yet he couldn't do it.

Was he deaf? No. Was he stupid? Of course not. Yet me, in all my trainer awesomeness, thought the only way to get him to align his knees over his second toe was to tell him to do it.

Now, don't get me wrong, on many occasion this can fix the issue. However, what I didn't realize at the time was that structural restrictions in this guy's ankle and/or hip could possibly prevent his knees from tracking correctly, despite how hard he tried to. I had no clue what implications closed-chain ankle dorsiflexion had during a front squat, or that poor hip internal rotation combined with flexion could force his knees inward in the bottom, or that sucky gluteals wouldn't allow him to power the movement correctly.

And, naturally, didn't know that I might have to program these into his workouts in order to help him squat correctly. This forced me to research and learn.

Should squats be in the program of most people? Yes, duh. However, what good is it if they can't do it proficiently? (Hint: they probably can't, at least until they're coached on it.) You need to be able to write their program so they can receive a training effect in the meantime, while at the same time helping them get from Point A to Point B.

It's the hundreds of hours you spend teaching a wide variety of people - coordinated and uncoordinated, conditioned and deconditioned, male and female, young and old, hobbit, dwarf, and wizard - to do things correctly that make you a better coach and program designer. Teaching and coaching elite level athletes is easy. Your only job there is basically to ensure they don't injure themselves under your watch (now, increasing their vertical five inches is another issue, but I'm just discussing the coaching component for the time being).

If you can coach some of the most uncoordinated, deconditioned people in the world through the fundamental human patterns, then chances are high you can write a program that doesn't suck.

Which leads (kind of) to the next point....

3. Practice Writing Programs. Apply these programs to real people, then write more programs. Repeat x Infinity.

I'll return with this part on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Q & A: How to Write Resistance Training Programs, Part 1

Q: Hi Steve,I'm very new to the powerlifting/strong(wo)man training world ... and I love reading your blog! It's always chock full with information. One thing I was wondering, and maybe it'd be a topic to write about ... how do you come up with workouts?? Do you make stuff up?? Have a "grab-bag" of moves and pull out of that?? Borrow and modify from other trainers??  I always wonder where trainers come up with new ideas.

Thank you for all the great info!!

A: First, I'm humbled that you enjoy reading my (and my fellow coaches) musings here on SAPTstrength and I thank you for the kind words. It's always good to feel appreciated and to be assured that not everyone, to put it as eloquently as possible: thinks I suck.

Second, as I began to draft my response, it didn't take me long to realize how multifaceted this topic really is, so I'm going to break up my answer into a short series that hopefully doesn't tank as much as Pirates of the Caribbean. Moving on to the first point....

1. Train Yourself

Yes, I'm serious. You'd think I wouldn't have to make this #1 on the list, but I'm continually shocked by how many people are out there, either on the internet or in actual gyms, training other people when they don't walk the walk themselves. I'm not saying you have to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or possess the raw strength of Andy Bolton, but at least get after it yourself, for the love!

For one thing, are people going to listen to your advice regarding fat loss if you're borderline obese and get winded simply from walking from your car to the front door? Second, and more importantly, consistently training yourself gives you a chance grow in understanding of how all the training variables interact with one another.

And I'm not talking just sticking with one training methodology, either. While I personally haven't experimented with everything under the sun, I've completed full cycles of Bodypart Splits (more cycles than I'd like to admit, hah!), High Frequency Training, Upper/Lower, Powerlifting, Escalating Density Training, Total Body Training, Push/Pull Splits, Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 (for six months....not sure why I stopped to be honest), Stevo-Gets-Sexified Training, and more.

Through this, I've figured out which exercise pairings are brilliant, those that are not-so-brilliant (I'd be embarrassed to recount them all), what type of plans actually make me stronger rather than turning me into a huge pile of fail, and what style of training is best to implement based on what my goals are and/or what I have going on outside the gym walls.

Heck, I've competed in running/obstacle races, and even Triathlon, in order to garner a deeper understanding of the training stressors distance athletes face specific to their style of training. This, in turn, has helped me become a better coach and and allowed me to write the programs for SAPT's endurance athletes with much greater accuracy and proficiency, due to the fact that I've walked (or ran) in their shoes. These races provided me with a real, first-hand opportunity to see how:

• Performing 4x8 Bulgarian Split Squats or SL RDLs the day before a Threshold or Cardiac Power Interval run will be akin to asking for a suicide mission, and also, perhaps, for your gluteal musculature to fall off the bone and onto the pavement
• Intervals are a very powerful tool in training for endurance events, but should not be used exclusively
• When designing conditioning programs (be them interval or steady state), it's best never to increase the total distance or time by more than 20% per session, as this will greatly reduce the risk of injury while still allowing the athlete to improve
• The frequency/volume of swim sessions will affect the implementation of vertical and horizontal pressing performed in the weight room
• You actually won't turn in to a weak pile of poo if you do steady state cardio, as long as you design your weight lifting program appropriately
• Yes, distance athletes need to resistance train. They needto foam roll (I don't care what people are saying, just do it). They need soft tissue work. They need to stop worrying about their six-pack.

The same can be said for when I experimented with all the weight training methods above, it gave me a chance to feel what it's actually like to train different ways, and this has helped me to better write the programs for my athletes and clients.

I've trained using 2x/week plans (when I was working three, part-time jobs simultaneously while studying for the CSCS), 3x/week, 4x/week, and even 6x/week plans (shoot me), all for extended periods of time which helped me feel out how to best distribute the training stress throughout the week depending on the plan being used.

And yes, I realize everyone is different, and other people won't always respond the same way I do (positively OR negatively) to a particular training plan, but it's still a much greater step in the right direction that sitting on your butt all day and then commanding other people to suck it up and train (because that always goes over real well).

Please don't mistake me sharing all this an attempt to brag (don't know what exactly it would be bragging about....but just in case). Continually training yourself, through no matter what "Life" throws at you, gives you a greater appreciation the demands your clients experience outside of the gym walls, and say, for example, you had planned for them to do cluster sets of front squats (hint: they're awful), but then Life hit them with a poop-storm before they walked in the doors of the gym, it is actually okay to change the plan you wrote for them, and instead, give them something more "invigorating" and something that will set them up for success rather than make them hate you for life. They'll still get results, and they'll love you more for it, I promise.

I was just talking to Sarah the other day about how she's just weeks away from giving birth to her second child and yet she's still getting after it every day, be it inside or outside the gym.

And you know what? When her daughter grows up and becomes pregnant, and then complains that it's not possible to exercise regularly while facing the demands of pregnancy (and if you're like Sarah, owning a business while simultaneously working as a full-time strength coach for a DI university), she'll be able to look her child in the eye and say, "You know what, twice a week I did one prowler push for every week you were in my belly, along with lifting 4x/week."

Pwned.

Anyway, that's it for now. Be back with part 2 on Friday.