Paul steps you through his system of analysis to transform a weak beginner personal training program into a successful workout plan that sets you and your client up for success.
Overview: This article provides in-depth look at how we edit and revise programs. The program you’ll see was submitted to me by a “certified” personal trainer. You’ll see how we analyze the program for mistakes, and revise the program to optimize it for beginner personal training lessons.
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Beginner Personal Training Workout Plan Review
To the right (or below on mobile) is the first workout of the Beginner Strength Personal Training Program. Let’s analyze this workout as written, and see where it can be improved.
Beneath the title of each workout plan, I expect to see a five to seven words summary of the overarching structure of the workout plan. This draft plan doesn’t have that, so we will need to look at it de novo. So we are writing a strength training program. The first thing I notice in this program is that there is no exercise called the TRX squat extension. When when you write TRXworkouts TRXhas gone through the trouble of actually naming every workout there is. And there is no movement called TRXsquat extension in TRX. You want to look up the actual name for the exercise so that other coaches know what you mean by TRX Squat Extension.
WOD 1130: Beginner Strength Workout for Personal Training
So the workout is one round for quality. We have dumbbell snatch dumbbell, push press, dumbbell snatch, hang high pull, snatch, shoulder press, snatch and incline row
So this is a speed-based workout and it focuses more on conditioning. A dumbbell snatch is very difficult for a beginner to do. Beginners don’t have the flexibility to get down all the way, they don’t have the overhead mobility to pull the dumbbell overhead. Beginners don’t understand hip timing. I would really never put a snatch movement in a beginner workout. Certainly not one for strength, because the snatch teaches kind of speed which is kind of the opposite of what we do for strength.
I also would always think about the movement patterns right a push press is a more complex version of the strict press. We haven’t taught this brand new member how to do a strict press. So why are we going to go to a push press, when we haven’t taught them the strict press? Learn to walk before you learn to run.
The hang high pull…well they don’t even know to do a deadlift yet. Granted the hang high pull isn’t that complicated. Although the dumbbell hang high pull is a weak movement compared to the barbell ones. Plus the sumo deadlift high pull is a better choice. The dumbell hang high pull overall is not a great exercise really in any program.
The other thing that’s weird about this workout is we have the shoulder press and then we have an incline row. An incline row i’m assuming on like a bench seems like a weird choice because these are all standing exercises and we have a bench out of nowhere. The bench adds extra equipment and setup plus you have to teach all these movements and that’s just too much to do for a brand new person.
For the Cooldown we have t-spine stretch thoracic rotation quads and hamstrings. I’m actually i’m okay with the choice of mobility for this workout, but there are problems with this workout overall so i think this makes sense if we were going to do this workout, but i probably wouldn’t do this workout for a lot of different reasons.
In addition, this beginner workout is missing all the weights. The beginner workouts need to have weights. The weights should be designated by the skill level of the member. You should know the average weight a beginner does for a shoulder press. Somewhere around 30/ 20 lbs for men/ female.
So let’s fix this broken workout and turn it into something similar that would be appropriate for a beginner. TBC
Personal Training Edits and Rationale
- So we listed the equipment we need for the workout.
- Warmup is the same.
- We teach the skill work for the Dumbbell Press and Kettlebell Press
- Then we setup a strength-based sequence that focuses on the one exercise, the dumbbell press. Each set having fewer reps as the load goes up.
- Then we do a straight forward conditioning sequence using the Sumo Deadlift High Pull with the kettlebell.
- Cooldown is the same.
Personal Training Program Summary of Edits
As revised this workout is much easier to coach and just as effective to do. More complex exercises are not better for building strength. More complex exercises lead to injury when they aren’t done properly. The Dumbbell Press and Sumo Deadlift High Pull are plenty complex for a beginner to master. Less is more.
Beginner Strength Personal Training Program Analysis for WOD 1131
Issues with the Original Version
Warmup: too many exercises, too complicated, setup is too long.
- It doesn’t make sense for a personal trainer to teach a beginner 5 different TRX Exercises for a warmup.
- It also doesn’t make sense to exactly 7 of each exercise.
- There is no exercise called a twisted grip row
Workout Overview: Too many exercises. Exercises are too hard. Exercises are too complicated. Sequencing isn’t correct for strength. The program will take too long to teach.
- Barbell static lunges take too much time to setup
- Barbell static lunges are too difficult for a beginner to perform
- Wall Balls are for conditioning not strength
- Why would alternate exercises like the lunge, backsquat and step up in a strength program?
- Controlling a barbell step-up is very difficult and exposes the member to injury
Revised Version
Warmup as revised doesn’t require any equipment promoting a much faster transition time.
If we wanted to do a strength and conditioning based WOD, then we can do the Goblet Squat by itself.
The AMRAP conditioning sequence now only uses two exercises: the wall ball and lateral step-up. The wall ball allows to practice the squat form we just learned. The lateral step-up helps us build control across the frontal plane.
The Revised Workout is simpler to coach, safer to perform, and properly focuses on strength as the program design requires.
all right let’s look at the next one hip
hinges
trx glute bridges trx overhead press trx
hamstring bridges
twisted grip row this is not a named
movement
so look up what that movement is i have
a book that has all the names of the
movements
it’s probably a real movement we need to
look it up okay
so three rounds for quality 25 minutes
barbell static lunge
the static lunge i’m assuming the
barbells on their shoulders
that’s actually a hard position for a
lot of beginners to get into they don’t
have the requisite shoulder mobility
eight wall balls six barbell squats
eight wall balls six barbells step
ups eight wall balls six barbell squats
this workout isn’t good for the same
reason as the previous one wasn’t
so you have to teach this movement the
squat the wall ball
and the step-up a new client
is not likely to have enough lateral
flexion control
to do this kind of movements so
um i think what would be better is to
keep that same
pattern right so maybe you can even do
the same workout just about right we’re
gonna actually just copy it
because what you’re trying to do is
simmer so
we can switch the movements right we can
take this to a goblet squat
and we can do goblet squats for load
and we have heavy enough kettlebells to
do that with
um so are you um would you indicate
the um excuse me sorry about that would
you indicate
uh the weight that um
like you did here you don’t need to
because
so when you write a workout you lock all
the variables except for one
load is not locked on this one reps are
locked
time is as much time as they need to
recover you’re going to give more time
as the reps go down like in any strength
program
certainly you could write it in if you
wanted to right you could say something
like
you know 90 seconds between sets
but i think that’s kind of implied so
yeah now you have wall balls which is a
conditioning exercise
and you have step ups okay let’s put
them
together but we’re going to do it this
time as an amrap to give a little bit of
variability
[Music]ah
[Music][Music]this
[Music]so does this technically
so do wall balls and
step up qualify as a strength
no it depends it does not so
right now based on the last workout i’m
looking at the movements
this workout is very similar to the last
one this would be a strength and
conditioning program
am i okay with you doing a strength and
conditioning program for beginner
yes as long as it’s scaled correctly
but if we start with strength and
conditioning we need to do all eight
workouts i want a consistent structure
that makes sense it does okay it’s easy
to understand
you do one strength component you do one
conditioning component
okay so the second part
works by um they’re gonna go through as
many rounds as they can do in
12 minutes we have fixed the time domain
we’ve fixed the weight the meta med ball
lateral step up is like a side step up
and then they’re going to press the ball
up overhead assuming they have the
control
you may need to scale that down take the
med ball out
or remove the press if they don’t have
the balance for that we made the
press very light but not every beginner
has enough control
you might also specify the height of the
box
we’ll do a lower box on this one because
that’s a hard move for beginners
the height of the box should depend on
the on the height of the client though
so this would be for
someone
right somebody who’s six eight is
certainly going to do a higher box
because
it’s easier okay make sense
it does so the idea is that uh they’re
gonna try to do that as many
times as they can in 12 minutes and
we’re going to log
rounds completed
did you take a look at the crossfit
template doc that was mentioned in this
document
i did there’s a lot of very lot of
different choices that you can use if
you’re doing crossfit programming
that was very helpful yeah it took me
forever to write it but it was
very much worth it okay well let’s put a
strike through through this
okay
so
[Music]i think you can apply what i just went
over to this workout it
suffers from some of the same comments
and you can fix it
much the same way so i’m gonna skip this
one
take what i went through and apply it to
this one okay
uh workout six
all right i want you to look at workout
6 and explain to me what i don’t like
see if you can apply the rationale and
how i would change it because we have to
keep the same
structure and even structure aside
right we’re doing strength and
conditioning but
let’s take it back to the original
request i asked for a beginner strength
program right sure well what’s wrong
with this one
uh okay so it’s it has a lot of the same
um weaknesses that you pointed out it’s
uh
there are several com complex
uh movements here when
uh that the client may not know
um they may not be comfortable
necessarily
with um
the maybe the awkwardness of the
dumbbell
uh there’s some i think those comments
you’re saying
those are things to look out for i don’t
think they apply in this case though
okay that is things i said it’s not
relevant to this workout this workout
has different problems
okay um well let’s see we have
um
well there’s a lot of like
uh unnecessary
um movements from like
the bench press to an upright
then to a different um
then to incline and then to a rear
so there’s a lot of like i think one of
the
10 criteria behind writing a workout
plan was
um uh minimizing transitions
there’s just a lot of like there’s a lot
of dead time in here that is a big
problem with it
you got that right another issue is
we want to work compound to accessories
right this one kind of mixes them in
and when you write a workout like this
where it has rounds
it emphasizes speed kickbacks are an
accessory and so are rear delt flies
they’re not done for speed you do them
for equality
but the workout has time as the main
time domain it doesn’t have weights
either
so and i also don’t see
the need to have both dumbbell press
and bench right so
let’s switch it up right let’s think
about what we’d want to do so we want to
do
maybe the same exact rep scheme
although bench bench we might switch
just because
it’s it works slightly differently but
we’re going to just take this as our
starting place
we’ll do dumbbell incline press which
you wanted to do which i’m good with
yeah and instead of going to threes i
think we’ll keep the reps a little
higher because it’s a little harder to
control
which was the awkwardness you talked
about right and then this is dumbbell
press
dumbbell incline press for load
okay i’m good with doing that
and then you want to switch which is
okay
if you want to do kickbacks and rear
delt flies
right those are accessories it’s no
longer conditioning
right it’s a different style workout but
still important for beginners to do
right and so kickbacks we gotta write
our weights though right so we’ll do
10
[Music]10 kickbacks for
load and when you have a chiral exercise
you got to specify it’s 10 left and then
10 right
because it’s never clear whether you man
10 each side or 10 total so
always specify it so it’s clear and then
the rear delt fly
the rear delt fly with dumbbells is okay
but since you have access to exercise
tubing you have access to
a cable machine you might use a better
one those are better tools if you have
them if you don’t have them sure
dumbbell is okay
but might as well use a better tool
since we have it
cable machine
assuming you’re used to using that right
if you’re not used to using it then use
dumbbells obviously
okay and then we can do yes i have a
question
um with the workout is so we have
uh incline press um and then
followed by another incline press i just
that’s just a notation
so this would be like on sugar wad which
would you have to do it this will be the
title
dumbbell incline press and then this is
the workout definition
i understand okay i understand thank you
so is there a good reason to stick these
together there’s not
because we’re alternating which is the
rest there’s no reason to cram these
together into the same sequence
so we’re just going to space it out so
this is accessory
kickbacks
[Music][Music]okay and this is also for load and when
you think about it
when you set up the workout this way as
a coach
isn’t this going to be easier to control
the client you got one exercise you’re
doing at a time
yes right it’s easier it’s easier to log
the workouts right
it’s less rushed there’s less things for
them to remember up front
right they don’t know how to do any of
these exercises so it’s a lot to just
put up in front
and this is this is less effective
than this style so this is both harder
to coach
more frustrating to the client and less
effective than the simpler one
make sense absolutely that’s great
great feedback a big point do not
put corrective accessory type exercises
in circuits with compound exercises
it doesn’t make any sense to do that
they are good exercises
they shouldn’t be sequenced this way
they should be sequenced this way
all right
i think this workout has the same kind
of issues
um but let’s see more particular
so hang higher pull front squats client
beginner clients often can’t do front
squats because of the mobility
but they might be able to do the
kettlebell version
um
so in this case you have less movements
you have two
okay that’s better off the top so you’re
trying to teach the clean
patterning okay i’m okay with that idea
um i think you might put in your workout
definition
right that’s where this description is
like um
area skills hang high pole
okay you wrote it as a high pole in
front squat okay that’s fine
um but you’re right it’s it’s it’s
it’s part of that
that uh teaching that clean um
yeah clean clean drills you know barbell
clean drills
and if i was going to be teaching a
brand new person
how to do a clean right
i probably would be looking at these
kind of these kind of things
[Music]i might do
uh just two things i don’t like one is i
probably would include
the hang muscle clean
in the sequence um
and i might do it this way
because they should at least see the the
general movement here
i put in the middle because you know
once it’s up there then they do the
squat
um i think this
sequence would be better done
as follows
[Music]hmm
[Music][Music]uh
[Music]okay so here we’re going to work each
one of these patterns
at a specified weight for five minutes
each
right and then this becomes uh the
kind of the scoring you need to specify
scoring is going to be description based
that’s one of the choices or i think it
says
text or something like that but they can
write how it went
and it’s going to be three different
sets so three sets of
other texts as you’re scoring so they
can write
this is really hard i’m working on this
etc etc
so this is your drill right
so um
and we might put it in a comment
uh we’ll put it right here star
increase weights if
patterning is good okay
so once we’ve done that we actually know
what weights are good for this client
right we can set up our 12
or we’ll do maybe 10 minutes
and uh 10 minutes
well we’ll do it this way three rounds
for time
[Music]twenty one fifteen nine
[Music]so
[Music]what makes this work well is
you’ll spend this 15 minutes kind of
teaching these patterns and seeing what
weights
should be selected for these ones
does that make sense uh
yes because the way the way you wrote
this
too right adjusting the weights
like kind of as you’re doing it because
you have low weight medium weight high
weight
while we’re doing this that’s just not
going to work like then that’s a switch
weight so you need multiple barbells
and multiple barbells for each movement
doesn’t really make makes sense
right so just drill the movements right
you’ll find what weights are appropriate
when you do that and then this is the
workout right so this is the skills
[Music]and this is your wad
[Music]and this is exactly how i would teach a
crossfit class or a strong class this is
more crossfit
from the time domain
why can’t we make this in its
conditioning why can’t we make this
strength because the
clean is too complicated to do
max effort would you ever have a
brand new clients do max effort
hang cleans no it’s too hard
they’ll hurt themselves could you have
an experienced person do that sure
i do max effort hanging cleans all the
time
so because you chose a hard movement
you can’t do strength i still think it’s
okay because i
do want members to learn it and so
you’ll teach it to them and so that’s
fine
but that’s why it has to be a
conditioning workout because you chose
patterns that they can’t be done for max
effort
or even a heavy effort for beginner
so so far so good all right
um five good mornings five air squats
five bend pull parts five side lunges
okay squat thrusters planks with chest
taps
low balls playing side taps
or floor slams it’s not a strength
workout
right for one the reps don’t make
sense like why would we do only five
wall balls
i don’t understand that i don’t
understand why we’d have a time domain
based workout
with a static move like a plank that
doesn’t make sense to me either
crossfit workouts never have static
movements
in an an as many rounds for time
or rounds for time methodology they do
use them but not
in this kind of sequencing um
so that doesn’t mean i’m not okay with
the movements though
you can do squat thrusters fine if they
can do a
front squat okay and they can press
overhead
right they could do plank chest taps
and wall balls we use them in the last
movement why don’t we copy the same
pattern we just did
because this same pattern works
for this workout that you’re trying to
do
okay what is it though
[Music]how would you do this how would you take
your work out here
and turn it into the same format we just
did
[Music]um uh let’s see
i would take
a hard question take your time yes so
maybe type it out if you want to type it
out
oh well i have my sleeping son in my
arms but uh don’t worry about i’m
talking about
i think what i i mean based on what what
we developed the last one i would say
um for the skills uh
to take five minutes each um uh
to work on the squat thrusters okay
um and uh
uh the wall balls so practice those
um
i lose you um
and i would do um higher series or
higher numbers of
um the squat thrusters and the wall
balls
let me ask you a question yeah
functionally what’s the difference
between a squat thruster
and a wall ball uh
so that’s a
yeah so that’s a great question is there
a big difference between the two
no i would say that the thruster maybe
you’re
going further to the ground but maybe
not that
no you’re going exactly the same depth
you don’t use we squat to parallel
so they’re functionally the same just
about
there’s a slight difference from the
explosive aspect of the wall ball
maybe but nothing that would matter to
beginner
so because of that
there’s no reason you should combine
them in a beginner workout
you’re just making your job harder by
teaching two movements when one will do
the way the way to change this workout
is as follows
[Music][Music]all thrusters by the way are squat
thrusters by definition so you don’t
need to write the squat portion
it’s understood
[Music]now you want to put i’m going to make an
assumption that you want to put these
two movements which i’m cool with
into the workout because you want to do
that
we’re going to change the time and make
the
number of reps less so we have more time
to do that extra movements you want to
do in the back of the workout which are
movements beginners need
okay 10 10 10
dumbbell front squats dumbbell strict
press dumbbell thruster
you just taught them how to do it up
here all right we worked on the skills
we can combine them together okay
and then this movement’s slightly less
complicated than the clean we’re gonna
take you to three minutes each
so now we’re at 19 minutes and now you
want to do some planks and some side
planks
i’m okay with it but i think
i’m concerned about the fact that we did
a lot of shoulders here and then you
have lots of shoulders here
too much shoulders for sequencing these
together so maybe we can do
one though so we’re gonna do this
[Music]instead
[Music][Music]hmm
[Music]okay so because there are 30 second
rounds
each we’re no longer trying to force a
client to move
quickly through the chest tap or the
wrist tab wrist app is better for
beginner chest apps more of an
intermediate level movement
because it does them no good to go
faster going faster isn’t the design of
that it’s to maintain stability
and then they have a fixed movement 10
sit ups if they finish that early they
get a rest if they don’t
they’re back to the planks and we’ve
taken some of the extra work off the
shoulders
by doing the sit-up which still works
core
right yes
okay that workout’s good
[Music]i’m gonna skip these two because one of
the things i do need to
need you i need to make sure that you
can make changes like these without me
giving you answers because
it only works you always have to make
changes on the fly when you’re working
with people
and your ability to recognize what
should be done at the time is a skill
i need to make sure you have which is
why i don’t just give people the
workouts because
i can write it in the abstract and then
there’s something going on the client
has an injury
you need to change it and so i need to
make sure you can develop this skill
okay so we’ll skip those we’re going to
look at this one now
so this one is
is our weight loss program so we have
road machine for 250 meters
five push-ups five med ball slams 25
dumbbell unders
or single lenders okay
what don’t i like about this
[Music]uh what do you think it is
let’s see well
in this well i guess in the skill area
i indicated that it was going to be a
single arm dumbbell row
which one are you looking at hold on i’m
looking right i’m looking right here
yeah okay um
oh yes well that that’s certainly a
problem
let me tell you what it is because none
of the stuff i told you before
there’s different problems with this so
rowing’s fine rolling 250 meters how
long does it take a beginner to do
[Music]a very long time uh how long
probably about uh
three to four minutes that’s the right
answer about three minutes 3 30
maybe how long does it take to five
push-ups
yeah 20 seconds
yeah there’s a problem there right
there’s a balancing problem
right five med ball slams is also like
30 seconds
right and then 25 dumbbell enders
or double unders is not happening for
beginner period they’ll never
i won’t even put it in there double
unders is advanced or expert level skill
only
because it’s really hard for them to do
it um can you do double unders
uh i’m on a good day on a good day never
put in any
techniques that you can’t demonstrate
well and
not everybody can do double unders
they’re very hard uh if you can do them
great
not everybody can just like handstands
not all my coaches can do them
but if you can do them you can use them
but not a beginner workout
um i think
the problem
[Music]now that’s okay
am i am i running the risk of
just exhausting getting them to the
point of exhaustion
like within the first few minutes of the
with it
with an 18-minute amrap for the beginner
um
you’re going to have to teach a new
beginner client
pacing on this kind of workout right and
yes they might go too fast that you can
control
to telling them how fast to go through
and things
so this workout
as revised is fine
you’re going to start though let’s say
actually let me finish talking about
this and they’re going to ask pose the
questions
with this revision your workouts fine um
now these movements take about the same
amount of time more or less
um and we’ve taken away the push-up
which is a strength movement which did
not fit in here at all
it just was fi it just didn’t make any
sense when we raised the reps up on here
simplify this and increase reps so this
is fine
um can i ask you a question one of the
workouts in the template was um
every minute on the minute could i also
use that here where
maybe um maybe
whenever they finish the minute they
move on to something else
would that be inappropriate sure so you
could you could do
instead of doing that you can do four
rounds
on an imam right and then we score
reps completed
okay and if we do that
[Music]score plus calories we have to change
its fouls this is no longer a fixed item
this is now calories
this is not fixed this is not fixed
we’re scoring reps completed
this will be easier than the previous
one
because you’re not forcing the client to
do so many reps
when they want to slow down they just
slow down this is
easier even though it’s the same
movements it’s better
than the previous version for beginner
it’s actually good for anybody people
like these workouts having written many
of them
everybody feels like a winner and that’s
good
you know there’s nothing and every
workout don’t have to be super super
hard
okay um
your skills on this workout should be
the jump rope that’s not an easy skill
for beginners
even the single under let’s say they do
it
and they’re really just struggling like
they’re doing the one foot then the
other foot they’re jumping and then
pausing
and you work on the skill for 10 minutes
and
the jump rope is nowhere is where it
needs to be for this workout what are
you going to do
i’m going to nix the actual rope
i’ll ask the person to um
do the jump rope movement
without the actual rope you do air ropes
arrow jumps
fine you could do jumping over little
plastic hurdles
um you could do a lot of variations like
that you want to do air ropes air ropes
are fine
okay it’s good
they fixed it you’ll need to make your
adjustments could be updating your
workout obviously to the warm-up and the
cool down to apply it to that
but let me see what you picked for the
cool down so you pick the isometric
squat
flexor stretch chest stretch
shoulder stretch okay so you have
stretches related to the exercises that
were worked we took out the chest aspect
so that one’s no longer in there
okay
all right let’s look at the next one we
don’t have battle ropes in the gym
because of covid i do own battle ropes
we don’t have any in the gym
right now so we don’t have that piece of
equipment
um reverse lunges frog jumps
single arm dumbbell row let’s take the
workout
as you wrote it assuming we did have
battle ropes
okay analyze the workout based on
everything i told you
and tell me what’s good and what’s not
good about it
well um similar uh
to uh
something like double unders
um reverse lunges may not be
um very doable
for a beginner especially
with the knees frog jumps the same thing
a lot of those jumps can be hard for
somebody who’s
a beginner or is deconditioned
and so there’s a lot of there’s a lot of
strain
on the on the knees i would agree
there’s strain on the knees if you don’t
have control of your hips
i’d agree with that what else
let’s see
the timing if
the timing i guess like if you’re doing
five rounds of this
um
one two
[Music]it doesn’t add up to 18 minutes is 18
minutes a time
cap or how long the workout takes um
i think it was supposed to be the time
cap yeah
so it would have that itself
based on the 20 second or the the
this style there’s definitely an issue
there because it’s not
as you programmed it this workout
wouldn’t take 18 minutes
there’s another problem though that’s
even more significant
um
i’m gonna ask you some questions and i
think the answer will come to you
this is a conditioning movement right
yes
this is stability and conditioning
okay this one is
explosive strength and conditioning
what’s this oh that’s strength does it
fit
no it doesn’t not at all
so get rid of that one
now your comments about them being too
hard for beginners yes you’re right
trx squat jump
when you’re holding the trx we’ll deal
with the problem about stability
the trx reverse lunge will deal with the
stability issue you mentioned
and then we can just pick a third trx
movement
so both of them are facing the anchor
point
so
and these are this is moderate
that’s high we’ll do trx cycle jumps
we’ll change this to one minute
intervals
and we’ll actually put in a rest because
that’s going to be very hard for a
beginner to do
and that takes us to a 20-minute workout
if you don’t know these movements make
sure you talk with one of the coaches
before you
program them right or substitute them
out
i picked these this is not the only
right answer
okay if you don’t know what cycle jumps
are make sure you look
make sure you look them up from a source
or talk to a coach who’s certified in
trx
don’t trust the youtube channel of some
guy who’s got a great six-pack who
doesn’t know damn thing about training
we all know those videos okay these are
real movements they have real
points of performance and make sure you
know them or pick other movements
that you can find good resources for
so i don’t look at your program and tell
you in front of the client that’s not
even a cycle jump
and you’re looking like you don’t know
what you’re doing
okay cool downs make sense
good we do have lots and lots of videos
on youtube
you can probably search our channel for
those movements that probably come up
but i can tell you that mark max
and brian will know those movements
brian actually has several
certifications in trx
um and i’ll be able to tell you what
they are if you don’t know what they are
okay let’s look at the next workout
okay talk me through it
do you think it’s good or not good
um i think it’s got
i think it’s got some of the same um
weaknesses uh as the other ones okay
i want you to take all the principles
i’ve taught to you
so far and then i want you to think
about the different problems
and then i want you to stack them in
order of like the most severe
okay what would you say
is the most severe issue with this
workout
program or this workout right here
number one
mistake um well
again this is a this is a
this is a weight loss program um this is
not a strength
uh program and um lots of
and and so
it’s there shouldn’t be as much of an a
focus on
strength but also you know
you’re teaching some very complicated
moves like
that’s the problem like we discussed
snatches and
do you think do you think i could teach
this workout to a brand new beginner
and get them to do it safely no no i
can’t do it
you’re right i would never program this
workout for brand new clients
you definitely should not do it that’s
the main
problem it’s such a severe problem
that i would take out these movements
altogether there’s no point in doing
them you won’t get them to work
that’s the biggest issue second
you just did jump rope i think in the
two workouts ago
so i might not put it in this early
although you know
if if if you are you know some coaches
like to teach
jump rope as an important skill and for
that i could see keeping it
um five kettlebell swings
doesn’t make any sense to me incredible
things are high volume movements
you know minimum 25 you know
normally we do 50 or even 100 is what
we’re doing
five we would never do cleaning jerks
are heavy so certainly you could do five
um this workout if it was written this
way
you could be and there’s no per side
because
they’re barbell movements um
that workout could be an okay
advanced level crossfit workout
but we don’t have an advanced level
person
yes so it doesn’t work
so what do you want to do about it how
do you want to change it yeah
i i want to get rid of the uh cleaning
jerks
and i want to get rid of the snatches
okay
and i want to uh
do more kettlebell swings
um i i’d like to keep
um is that an inter is that interest
is that interesting enough is that
variable
enough for the client
i would do something like this
so
[Music][Music][Music][Music]okay underneath this structure we can
reinforce that we already taught the
client had to jump
ropes so they’ll be better at it we’re
given 10 minutes of time to teach the
kettlebell swing which is very hard to
teach to do clients
then we’re going to do it in a workout
and then
we’re going to put the single leg
deadlift which uses the same kettlebell
that we can use for the swing probably a
lighter one though
um and we can do that by itself and and
work on teaching that
this weight will probably be
15 and 10.
[Music]okay um i wouldn’t do
this warm-up because the row machine
takes a lot of time to clean and take
apart and then you have
conditioning here you don’t need this
conditioning
and then the lat pull down also takes
time
um i probably wouldn’t do lat pull downs
with a rowing either because once
conditioning and one is
pull parts they’re both okay i wouldn’t
sequence them this way
like if i wanted to use these movements
i probably would simply do
row machine
500 meters
i’m 30 watt
maybe even 40 that’s you know
that’s going to be better you don’t have
enough time though
with what we’ve done now so paul um
can i ask you a question since there’ll
be so much emphasis on
kettlebell swing is there something
that we could do in the warm-up that
would open up those
yeah yeah absolutely so think about what
the kettlebell
swing requires right what does it
require requires thoracic
extension on the hip hinge
right
and maybe
shoulder extension all right okay
yeah so that’s the idea that the
warm-ups are connected to what
that’s challenging that’s not an easy
[Music]thoracic extension we can do
so a simple a simple movement at this
thoracic extension is a good morning
right or
what we call arcs which is when you lay
on your stomach and your arc your back
up
the hip hinge the good morning has that
too
but you can also do glute bridges
uh the arc is also superman is that is
that
yeah you can think of that superman it’s
slightly different
superman tends to be more lumbar flexion
thoracic extension has to come from the
top of the shoulders
okay then just think about where the
extension’s coming from
and then shoulder extension
might be that’s basically pulling your
arms down right that’s your shoulder
extension
because we need that for the swing to
maintain the
tightness right so maybe we can do a
wheel
[Music]and then you just write your times right
and you’ve warmed up the patterns
and you can use these warm-ups for
talking when you’re teaching the swing
then which muscles are going on
okay okay we can check our time we got
10 minutes
20 minutes 30 minutes
i’d give you maybe eight minutes for
this
so that was what 28
cool down 38 minutes okay
[Music]i want you to do the rest on your own
because they’re not going to come out as
well as the ones we just did together
but i want you to have a chance to apply
everything as best you can
we’ll review them and we’ll go through
and make corrections
as needed again excellent i’ll um
i’ll work on this and i’ll try to get
let me look at one of your mobility
workouts though because i didn’t look at
any of them
squat position frog jumps dead bugs
squats down walk out
interesting
your at least initially your
understanding of corrective exercises
is superior to your sequencing
of workouts which is not a common thing
it is often harder for new coaches to
come up with
the right correlation for which
exercises should be done for warm-ups
and mobility
than sequencing workouts you have it the
other way
this is harder to learn i find and
harder to teach
uh let’s see what you got for
standing fold hip burn on
yeah you got these this is all the right
idea
um they’re not the most sophisticated
choices but they’re certainly fine
for where you are now i don’t have any
problem
with you doing these exercises
you’ll use these exercises when for
example
you’re doing strict press and you notice
the client cannot press the bar
straight overhead without opening up
their ribs they don’t
have the requisite shoulder mobility
to do the exercise correctly okay
no problem you’ve got an overhead
mobility workout already
right yes you have a front rack
workout planned when you’re going to do
the front the front squat
they cannot get into that position they
can’t get their elbows up right well
that’s good well you got
mobility to work on that with them
that’s why you put them in
these look fine um
any questions oh this has been immensely
helpful thank you
good okay um revise them and let me know
when you’re ready to go through it again
i think you’ll get most of it
your
on the plus side you did a good job of
keeping your formatting
consistent which is hard for coaches to
do and that actually
is a good thing it looks very well
organized
i saw the consistency of what you were
doing
and that’s also good it just wasn’t
consistently
the right answer but it’s still but it’s
still good that you were you know that’s
hard to keep
you know the same line of thinking and
going through that and so those those
points are really good
i would suspect it’ll be like we talked
about
i think you’ll be able to get it up to a
bb
plus on the next run and there’ll be
some things you won’t get and we should
be able to close it
in one or two more cycle throughs
make sure that you are
really good at teaching
any movements in here for example the
kettlebell swing
okay think about where did you learn
that who taught
that to you right
was it self-taught did you take a
certification on it
because i’m gonna check to make sure
that you have the knowledge base to
teach that
and if you don’t it shouldn’t be in your
program
now maybe you do maybe you know i
learned it from andrew duquesne
who’s one of the founders of the russian
kettlebell club and that’s where i
learned to do the swing from and before
i
worked with her i didn’t know what the
hell i was doing
and and there was some tough lessons i
learned from her
so just think about that from some of
the more difficult movements in here
you know where did i learn this movement
and how confident am i that i know all
the points of performance and the
sequencing for changing them
because you don’t get any bonus points
for picking harder movements
doesn’t get people in shape any faster
just get some hurt faster
if you don’t know what to correct
i understand so not that you can’t have
swings and begin a program you totally
can
i just expect you’d be damn good at
teaching them that’s all
so don’t use them unless um
that’s something i can always
incorporate later on when i have the
technique yeah when you’ve learned more
about it and i don’t know
you might be very good at it i have no
idea how good you are swings i’m
coaching them
nope i’m not okay there’s no need to put
them in
because you know think about it right
our swing is a necessary exercise to get
somebody in good shape no absolutely not
people were in good shape long before we
even had swings in this country
so just just focus on the stuff so that
any movement i come and watch you coach
you’re like well i know this movement i
know all the points i know how to
correct i know it’s important
i know how it should be done and you’ll
keep the clients safe
and you’ll have more confidence and
you know harder movements you know
you’ll learn them it takes
it takes time to learn them but um you
know
that way you know
what will happen too if you don’t know
the movements well
clients can’t always tell um
clients can see even if they can’t do
the movements
you can see whose movements look better
right like just like in dance right i’m
not an expert at dancing
but if i and i don’t think you’re an
expert at dancing either are you
but i know nothing about dancing
honestly but i bet you if i watched you
dance and i watched a pro dance i could
see who’s better at dancing
right i can’t do it and i couldn’t even
tell you why
but you can see something’s better than
the other
so don’t pick movements that you can do
well
because otherwise it’s going to
undermine your authority because they’ll
see the other coaches are better and
they won’t book you again because they
don’t think
you know what you’re doing
so i understand and i don’t i do that in
my own classes
i don’t put stuff in my classes that i
can’t impress
clients with and honestly if i can’t
impress them i probably shouldn’t be
coaching them
and then that’s why i hired you to teach
my yoga because you know what she looks
way more impressive
teaching yoga than i do good for her yes
good stuff all right um just give me a
call or send me an email when you have
the next revision
and we’ll go through it and hopefully
finalize the next shot if not we’ll do
it on the fi
on the third one oh thanks i’ll try to
knock this out um by the weekend
so okay yeah you have some time here to
to do it it’s
it’s much less time than the first time
but it’s still going to take some some
some time to
clean up these pieces paul thank you for
all the features you’re welcome
i’ll talk to you soon all right good
night