Structuring Your Own Training Program, Part 1
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Loading ...This is far too deep to be covered in a single post.
But perhaps you’re interested in training and have been looking through some materials. There’s an absolute shitton of resources out there. Some of it’s crap, some of it’s useful–you can learn by doing and you can also cull wisdom from that which is repeated throughout many sources (usually–sometimes bad advice gets repeated. Use your discretion).
The big question, however, is how exactly do you go about structuring your training? I’ve already touched upon the essentials of this when I wrote about goal setting. If you haven’t set your goals, stop reading right now and figure them out. Honestly, if you don’t know what you’re working towards you’re just going to waste your time more often than not, unless you have somebody like a coach or a team to make goals for you. However, even those are not guaranteed to be in line with what you want, however, so take some time and think about it for yourself, too.
Structuring your training is like building a house. Your goals are the foundation upon which your progress will eventually be built. You can try building with a shitty foundation, but it’s likely to look pretty shitty when it’s done and be nothing close to what you expected, and will fall apart as easily. Get ‘em right–you can always refine later, but do it as well as you can from the get-go. Don’t be afraid to set ambitious goals; know that they can serve to motivate you more than setting no goals will.
Once you have your goals, you’re ready to plan. Where do you start from here?
Look at your goals. Let’s take a look at mine from two summers ago and use that as a framework:
1. Eliminate Ankle/Knee woes.
If you have pressing injury concerns, this should be at the forefront of your planning. For me, my ankle and knee issues were enough to limit how hard I could train in more general terms, limiting my range on squats for instance. I added a lot of single-leg work geared toward strengthening both, and TOOK CARE OF MY BODY. Get enough rest. Ice when it swells. Take ibuprofen if necessary. Braces are a question that depends on your needs–if you really need it or really need to perform now, go for it. Otherwise, aim to wean yourself off of it–even if you still feel compared to wear a brace, say, when playing, if you can get comfortable training without it you’re that much less likely to have the brace fail you as a sole support.
Injury prevention work means doing (pre)habilitation work before every workout. Even 5 or 10 minutes will help keep you from overdoing it and setting yourself back. It also means flexibility work. More on that later.
2. Get into “Better Shape.
These are covered in more detail in the actual blog, but whatever your general fitness goals are will determine what direction your training should go in. Of course, a balanced program is best–one that doesn’t focus on strength to the point of sacrificing conditioning, etc. But keep in mind what your current needs are as well–sometimes a bit of sacrifice to shore up your weaknesses (or further augment your strengths) will ultimately lead to better results.
If your goals tend towards the explosive (ie, improving your vertical), you should focus on plyos. HOWEVER, focusing on the plyos alone won’t do it unless you’re out of shape–your absolute potential for being explosive is limited by your strength, so you should also include strength work. If you can’t squat your bodyweight, you shouldn’t be doing plyos. If you can’t squat at least 1.5 times your bodyweight, you shouldn’t be doing exclusively plyos. If you can’t squat 2x your bodyweight, you should not be doing too much of the really high-impact plyos (one-legged depth jumps and the like). Just trust me on this one, unless you want to shell out $40 for the VJDB to get the same info.
If your goals are more grounded in strength (this is often in addition to other goals), hit the weights. It’s a little beyond the scope of this entry to go into that in too much detail–but if you’ve never lifted before (and I mean on a regular basis–if you’re trying to structure your own program without knowing how and are reading this, you probably haven’t lifted in the way I mean), start with a focus on the basics–squat. Deadlift. Bench (if you’re inclined–and balance it out with some rows). Work in one-legged versions of the first two and a one-armed version of the last one. Train your core. I touch upon a bit more detail here as far as rep schemes go…if you’re in doubt, try 5×5. If you’re still learning the motions, go lighter and try for 3×8 or 3×10. Shoot for a total of between 20-30 reps (not counting warm-ups if you start light) on a given exercise in a given workout.
If you’re going for GPP (known by most as “conditioning,”) you have a lot of options. Crossfit is a great source of workouts (and workout resources–check out their exercises page!). You know what a conditioning workout is like–work hard, rest little, get better. The key is to make sure you can either time your workout or do it with a time limit for number of reps/distance covered/etc–in this way you can track your progress.
So, your goals are the foundation. The exercises are your tools. When you know generally what kind of exercises/workouts you want to do (finding them is where the research comes in–check out the exercises page of Crossfit, and give T-nation a scouring (search for squat, deadlift, bench press, and dig a little) if you need help with coaching–or better yet, find somebody who knows what’s what and learn from them. I’m talking somebody you pay, or somebody who shows the results of their own work–your roomate probably thinks he knows how to squat, but just dips his butt a few inches), how you combine your exercises into workouts and place them throughout the weeks and months provides the framework for your improvement. This is perhaps the trickiest part to master.
Anybody can go in to the gym and dick around for an hour or two every now and then. The reason why you set goals in the first place is because it is from this foundation that you can draw your motivation, and motivation is absolutely essential if you’re going to consistently work on the house that is your body and your athletic potential and make progress.
Next Saturday I’ll finish by talking more about specifics to how each component of training should be incorporated into a larger structure.
In the meantime, allow me to insert a plug for Ross Enamait. Quite frankly, my experience with program design is driven in large part by information I’ve gotten from his Infinite Intensity program. I recently purchased Never Gymless to guide my training here in Japan, and it has been equally helpful. Ross gives very broad guidelines and a number of specific exercises for you to pick and choose from (and a sample 50-day program if you’re a sheep and don’t want to bother to think for yourself–I’m not judging you, I swear), all of which are likely to do far more to enhance your training than my ramblings. The dude doesn’t pay me to give him shoutouts (Hah! Like I get enough traffic to warrant such a thing), this is just me speaking from my own experience.
