How To Write The Best Fitness Program

You’re probably following a REALLY sub-optimal fitness plan.

I don’t say this lightly, it has just become more and more apparent as I’ve progressed as a trainer that the average fitness enthusiast, understandably, has no idea what they should be doing and why.

How could you be expected to when there is a virtually unlimited supply of opinions and options on the internet?

This doesn’t just apply to the madness of the body transformation industry but also covers amateur and high level athletes with zero clue beyond knowing they should lift some weights, do some intervals, maybe do some steady state work, and probably try harder.

Some people operate at a high level due to talent and hard work and some smart programming could open up a whole new level of performance.

I’m going to flip the typical approach on its head so that you can finally start to move forward at a rate than you didn’t think you were capable of.

Generally, coaches walk into things with a methodology they like.

They might be the kettlebell guy, the interval girl, the movement perfectionist or the ‘build a massive base’ cardio disciple. This has become more of a problem since the dawn of social media and the need to be seen as a specialist – all so you can have it in your Instagram name and become known for your ‘thing’.

Alternatively, you have new coaches who have some basic understanding that lifting weights is crucial so all of your workouts will take the typical bodybuilding approach of 3-4 sets of 6-12 reps all the time with some randomly difficult interval training because…everyone does it!

None of the above are necessarily wrong but what IS wrong is imprinting what the coach believes to be the best way on everyone, often because it makes their life simpler when everything comes out of the same box!

Even if someone has gone to a coach BECAUSE of their famous method it doesn’t make it right for this person, in this situation.

What is this situation? That’s a great question and the very foundation of this article.

We can only know what situation we are in, what stage of the path we’re on and what we need, through using a battery of tests.

You don’t necessarily need all of them but they should all be in the toolbox.

For instance, if you’re looking to shred fat quickly, you’re unlikely to need to know your One Rep Max Deadlift for now. Similarly, if you’re trying to improve as a 10k runner and you’re already lean, we don’t need to be monitoring body fat every week.

Instead of a coach pulling you towards their favoured method, I propose a much more effective way that I call ‘Limitation Based Programming’.

To enable this, we need to perform certain tests which highlight exactly where your limitations lie. By doing this, we stop doing the things we like as a fail safe.

It’s human nature to act like this but if you like something, you’ve likely been doing it frequently for a while and if that’s the case, you’ve probably squeezed what you can out of the Progress Toothpaste Tube.

Limitations can be singular or numerous but by uncovering them, we know how to direct the next phase of training in a never-ending journey.

This isn’t just about sports performance either.

You may want to shift some pounds off your mid-section and typically, you’ll be told to move more and eat fewer calories. There is often value in this however, once you understand the many parts of the metabolism you start to see various places in the pipeline at which things can go wrong.

The metabolism isn’t simply this one thing that can be ‘fixed’. Ultimately we’re trying to consume, deliver and utilise as much oxygen as possible in our mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cells in our body) in running our engine.

This can be impacted at different parts of the pipeline including your breathing patterns, the cardiovascular system and/or the cells. So, you may well chop your calories down by 300 calories per day but if your metabolic system isn’t linking up properly you’ll be swimming against the tide and at best, only see muted results.

I like to use the following tests to shape a more direct and targeted approach. Below each one is a description of the key limitations we can uncover.

Without knowing these, you may well be driving with the handbrake firmly on and getting very frustrated!

BODY COMPOSITION TEST

I use the InBody scanner to show me a variety of key body composition metrics including skeletal muscle mass and body fat levels.

If I find that you already have a large muscle mass relative to your age and height, the approach we’ll use to help you drop fat will differ to if we find that your muscle mass is lower than it should be.

If we drop your calories down and make you do HIIT when you already have low muscle mass (and you might be doing lots of cardio) we’re likely to contribute further to a metabolism that is gridding to a halt.

We would be better to ramp up your muscle mass, improving your metabolic rate (and appearance) and enable us to make further body composition improvements in the long-term.

Below is a perfect example. This guy is very fit and has done a lot of endurance sports but had a high body fat percentage. He changed his training to predominantly weight training and corrected nutritional issues and lost a lot of body fat whilst increasing muscle.

No amount of extra cardio would have resulted in these improvements!

RESTING METABOLIC TEST

This test looks at how many calories you burn at rest and what percentage of those calories comes from fat and carbohydrates.

This indicates cellular function in comparison to expectation in a healthy system (about 70% of calories coming from fat and 30% from carbohydrates at rest) and can help nutrition decisions.

For instance, if your fat utilisation is sub-optimal, we may be wise to start with a lower carb diet to directly address this limitation whilst someone else may be fine on a higher carb diet.

We can also see if there is any indication of breathing issues at rest which also affect your metabolism.

ACTIVE METABOLIC TEST

This test is a ramp test in which we steadily increase exercise difficulty until exhaustion. Again we can see a large range of metrics but importantly for this article it will show us things like:

Fat/carb crossover – the heart rate at which your body switches fuels during exercise
Breathing rates and depth at low and high levels of intensity
Breathing difficulties which can be lung CAPACITY and/or lung CAPABILITY. You may have large lungs but still breathe in a shallow fashion thus not using the capability you have. Your metrics can be compared to global norms to see if one or both are limitations
V02max – the maximum amount of oxygen per kilo of bodyweight that you can breathe in a minute. This can also be compared to global norms for your age and gender to see if it’s limitation

MOVEMENT AND MOBILITY

There’s not much point designing an amazing workout if you can’t perform the exercises due to pain or at least movement difficulties.

Your lack of mobility may be the limitation, removal of which enables you to train harder and perform exercises through a fuller range. This will enable you to utilise the muscle more and/or go running instead of avoiding it because your hips always hurt!

RELATIVE STRENGTH

From a sports perspective, strength is the basis for all manner of things including joint stability, power and agility.

You may have amazing cardiovascular fitness because running is your thing and always has been, but lack the strength to go faster and be more explosive on the sports field.

If we keep playing to your cardio strengths, the limitation will remain and actual sports performance may continue to stagnate.

POWER

Some people have excellent ‘slow power’ such as pushing heavy things but lack ‘fast power’ – the ability to express that power in an explosive manner (such as sprinting).

Others are very explosive but lack maximal strength.

We can perform certain jump tests to identify where the limitation lies and how to design a strength and conditioning program for maximum impact in minimum time.

ENDURANCE

On the flip side, you may be very agile and springy on things like vertical jumps and 50 metre sprints, but lack the ability to do it repeatedly, in which case you’re still not as useful as you could be to your sports team.

A test may show that your VO2max is poor which is impacting your recovery between bouts of intense effort on the rugby field. Again, there is little benefit to making you 2-3% faster if you still can’t function very well after 4-5 sprints or into the second half of the game.

PROGRAMMING IT ALL

There are of course other types of tests than can be performed and sub-categories and variations of those above but those tests are all accessible at Storm Force Fitness and some other facilities. You don’t need a university or professional sports team’s science lab to find out where you’re REALLY at.

The results will go a long way to shining a light on where your limitations lie. From there we would look to program in whatever will remove the biggest limitation first.

A brief example would be a triathlete.

If an active metabolic test shows that they are prone to shallow and rapid breathing, we’re likely to see poor metabolic performance at lower intensities, reaching Heart Rate Zone 3 and 4 at lower power output than we’d like.

Forcing them to do more hill training despite their excellent leg strength would be silly. We would see much better improvement in many areas by working on improving their breathing.

Of course, the complete opposite could be true.

It’s standard practise to re-start each new season with a long base-building phase before progressing into higher intensity workouts, hill work, force production, lactic acid tolerance and so on as the important parts of the season approach.

However, we may have an athlete who already has a V02max well above normal but who lacks strength and gets found out on the hills in a race. They might be able to cycle for 6 hours happily but lack anything in the way of different ‘gears’ and power output ability.

If we bring this athlete’s leg strength up with some focused gym work and hill repeats, we can expect to see significant improvements in their overall performance.

SUMMARY

It’s clear that we can only really make optimal recommendations if we perform certain tests on each individual.

It should also be apparent why one person can see amazing results from a certain training program or nutrition plan whilst their friend or training partner just isn’t seeing the same improvements.

Taking a Limitation Based Programming approach requires a willingness to find and acknowledge your weaknesses but as cliche as it is, you can then work on turning them into strengths (or at least removing them as roadblocks to further progress!)

Instead of using the tools you like and are good at using, get tested and start to build a bigger toolbox from which you can take out and use what’s needed for the actual job in hand.