Programming Considerations - Part 3

Boris was super stoked, that's the Russian face for I'm having a great time...

In part 2 we discussed some reasons for the information we collected in part 1, this time I want to talk about as a coach what information I'm going to collect.

When I'm writing a program for an online client, I personally like to see a video of their current lifts (squat/bench/deadlift/military press/etc.) not just them telling me some number they hit in testing, as this is really not going to give me much information.

I have them video the top 3-4 weights, not just the top set. This is so I can analyse their form breakdown and determine whether or not this is going to be purely a technical issue or they have some sort of muscular imbalance/weakness, and not just the main lifts, I like to see some footage of a few basic aux lifts as well, the execution of these can give a good indicator of why there may be muscular imbalances.

Also you can get an idea of what type of athlete the person is -

The under doer - will stop their max/max rep sets short, and you can clearly see by the bar speed and lack of strain how much more weight/reps were left.

The over doer - will strain their fucking balls out, the form breakdown will be at an all time high.

And the seasoned athlete - who gets its spot on, a small amount of form breakdown, slowing in bar speed but still able to drive it through to the end without 26 seconds of pant shitting strain.

Or just seeing how emotionally invested the person is in attempting that lift... if they have triple ply knee & elbow sleeves, 4 pairs of wrist wraps, 7 belts, just watched some 8mm snuff film and has drunk 1 litre of ammonia with the sounds of machine guns in the background then hits their squat.

Identifying if it's a technical issue or a muscular weakness will determine the exercise selection and or frequency of certain movements.

Technical - then more volume and frequency will need to be done on the lift or lifts that are suffering, this gives the athlete plenty of opportunities to correct the problem.

Muscular imbalance - then there may be a greater focus on lift variations i.e. pauses, different bars, stances/grips, chains/bands/boxes/boards, etc. or maybe a greater proportion of energy devoted to more volume/frequency on given bodybuilding/isolation movements to remedy the weakness.

Identifying the type of athlete or how emotionally invested they are, is going to determine how you manipulate the intensity. If the athlete is an over doer and just did 26s of ass splitting strain or ridiculously high emotional state and you use that number as his/hers 100% to base the programme percentages off, when in reality they were probably @110% then the accumulative fatigue at the end or mid training cycle will be extremely high and basically negate any supercompensation. 

As for the under doer his/her percentages would need to come up a little as under training will also negate supercompensation. As for the seasoned athlete the numbers would be sufficient. So there could be 3 totally different outcomes from the one program just by not addressing how legit the testing weights are.