PRINCIPLES OF PROGRAM DESIGN

Principles of program design 1

T H E H E A LT H C O N T I N U U M
Vitality Balance Elite Fitness/Sick/Death

V I TA L I T Y
Base of Support / Ground Work/ Allows people to live at maximum
physical/spiritual/mental potential

• The highest level of fitness YOU need to attain is RELATIVE to your goal(s), IF you need/want to reach the
highest level in a sport, you WILL move farther away from Balance

• 20-40 years of age (maximal physical potential was not being chased by those who live into their 90s)

• The more balanced humans become, the closer they push towards optimal vitality

• Can’t say elite performance is aligned with vitality as you HAVE TO get OUT of balance in order to reach maximal
physical potential

• Understand, if one wants to attain/go after their maximal physical potential, you WILL push closer to “sickness/out
of balance”

What’s your purpose / goals?

If it’s connected towards longevity, need to aim for balance and then continue to strive towards vitality

What is the balance?

Offer physical potential was not being chased by those who live into their 90’s
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FUNCTIONAL FITNESS

Before the 90’s

Look good naked, improve at sport, could be at gym setting

RHYTHM
or aerobics class

Why did people need to do it?

Allows for stress adaptation, understands what's coming and what's going The birth of Functional Fitness, Fitness to IMPROVE their
function

R E S I S TA N C E Definition
Fitness that you do that helps you IMPROVE your function
(example: waiters, potentially walk 6-12 km/night, non stop,
Allows body to resist and overcome to GROW over time…Improve immune low fuel, lots of mental acuity
function through increasing lean mass Need good postural endurance, mental dexterity, R to L
symmetry, aerobic training for sustainability)

S W E AT Negative Side
Naming of it and dissecting what people are actually doing,
Detox to remove toxins from the body IF its actually HELPING people IMPROVE their overall
function

FUEL Looking at high intensity based sports; Post competitive

years, they do NOT have great mental, spiritual, physical
health into their 40s, 50s, 60s
Used to maintain our function and allow for
rhythm, resistance, and the ability to work to You don’t look at Usain Bolt’s program to get you to your life
sweat and longevity; not functionally capable and applicable to
you

When looking at people below 0 (sick/toxic) -> Anything that

gets them back to 0…can be deemed incorrectly if its fast
tracked to get them to 0 when its actually a smoke screen.

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ASSESS DON’T GUESS

Highlight the starting point

RHYTHM NEED to know where people are starting from

NO GUESSING
Anthropometrics (BW/Height/LBM/AGE/GENDER/TRAINING AGE/etc.) Will have to back track, can lead to injuries; Need to know the foundation
Looking at the body and its history and area surrounding the lot before you begin to build a house

R E S I S TA N C E
If you want to improve, we need to know where you are RIGHT NOW
Repetitive assessments over time to reflect on the program design and
see how it affected the client positive or negative
Movement patterns (The 9 different primal patterns; how do you move in
RELATION to your goals and function on a day to day function)
Examples:

S W E AT Body – Dexa Scan, Inbody, Bod Pod, Calipers

Move – FMS screen, general movement screen, etc.

Always remember FUNCTION (Want to test in a variety of
circumstances) Want to see HOW you respond to WORK, put into Work – 30/30 x 4 Row
stressful environment RELATIVE to function/goal, fatigue repeatability
These 3 things give us insight into what needs improvement:

For Example:
Improve LBM, Bending pattern, Improving Aerobic System

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O P E X B O DY
Always look at it as a health bio marker versus a perspective on how
you are suppose to look

• LBM to Fat Mass Ratios

• Signal to where you are and more concerned with health

• Whole goal for a lifetime of fitness is to gain or maintain as much LBM as

possible
• think about it as your engine, allows you to function day to day, keeps
immune system strong

• Fat mass
• relative to how well you burn, how well you move, and how well you use
the fuels you consume

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O P E X M OV E
How do people move before we start designing the program

1.) Look at Right to Left Side Balance (Upper / Lower / etc.)

2.) Patterns of Movement (Upper Push/Pull, Squatting, SL, Core, Bending)

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 OPEX WORK:
How will they respond to work?

1.) Power Curve

(As time extends, power starts to lower/diminish)

How does the client respond to different areas on this

curve?
(More powerful than enduring or vice versa)

a.) Work to Rest Scenario (Incomplete rest) 30 second

• Work / 30 second Rest x 4
• (Row Test; Not about your absolute power, rather how
FAST can they recover from the effort)

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THE STRENGTH CONTINUUM:

Absolute Strength (Deadlift) Strength Speed (Snatch) Speed Strength (Med Ball Throw 30#) Absolute Speed (Sprinting)

• Gives us a timeline, framework, perspective of different kinds of strength

• Not great to layout it as people will attach to the items they don’t have and feel
less adequate

• Always starting on the left side, absolute strength, in all people’s initial journey,
allows entry into the following point in the continuum; have to be strong enough
to produce enough force to elicit an adaptation

• The entry into becoming fast is becoming strong(er) first

• 85% of all humans who step in front of a coach for physical training will spend
their entire life in the absolute strength realm on the continuum

• Just because they are all available does NOT mean you NEED to do them;
Absolute strength is the baseline requirement for all other activities to maximize
the potential in the other areas on the continuum

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M A X I M U M P H YS I C A L P OT E N T I A L :

• There is a maximum; Lots of factors involved

• Have to think about it in terms of contractions

• When you first start, simple/short contractions

• (i.e. – 1 single bicep curl; small “light bulb”

• More contractions = more intensity = bigger light bulb
• MORE time to recover

• The potential is limitless as times of extreme stress…humans can call upon

supra levels of strength (i.e.- lifting a car to get child out underneath it)

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A DA P TAT I O N I N P H YS I C A L F I T N E S S :
Maximum Physical Potential vs. Time (on graph to show adaptation)

• If you are starting at zero (a beginner), you can give them anything and they will improve
(they can only do resistance work and aerobic work as they can’t produce power yet)

• If humans are exposed to a stress, they will back up, learn from it, and be able to
approach it even more = adaptation

• Intermediates / Advanced = adaptation slows over time

• Beginner – 0 to 5 push ups in 2 weeks

• Intermediate – 21 to 24 push ups in 6 month
• Advanced – 35 to 36 push ups in 1 year (fractional gains) (Goal is to minimize the
drop off as we age)

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A N A E R O B I C D E V E LO P M E N T:
Power to Endurance
• Alactic Power (short; high power)
• Alactic Endurance
• Alactic Capacity
• Lactic Power (45-60 second; medium, high power but less
overall)
• Lactic Endurance
• Lactic Capacity (3 min; lower power, on the border of aerobic
and anaerobic)

3 buckets for individuals:

• Want to learn and play with it
• Want to balance their fitness
• People who HAVE to develop their anaerobic system as best as possible for their sport
• Power first (must be strong)
• Have to be strong enough to create anaerobic power
• They will not get the true response to the training if not strong enough
• If someone does not have the prerequisite strength to do the intervals, they will be
practicing fatigued muscle endurance which builds compensatory patterns for faster
fatigued pieces.

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A E R O B I C D E V E LO P M E N T:
Endurance Power

Must build volume at lower intensity to build a base

5 minutes of intense work multiple times does not prep a person for 4 hours of activity…

Only entrance into aerobic work is doing a task that you could for a long period of time; building
everything in unison WITHOUT stress/fatigue

If you fast track through this continuum, you will not do sustainable/repeatable intervals at faster
rates as you are working at threshold paces

We start slow to build coordination especially on an internal level with all of the physiological and
neurological systems
The key to the slow drip approach is building resiliency in case you get too hot with faster
aerobic pieces and go slightly threshold. Due to the base built, you will be able to recover faster
from that intensive piece of training

Jumping into faster aerobic intervals without the pre-requisite base will lead to fatigue based
training that builds a compensation based approach to work…people perceive the work as hard,
because they are suffering, and assume its affective when its actually detrimental

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THE MUSCLE ENDURANCE TREE:

(Base of support of muscle endurance to allow for safe and effective Tension starts to grow as we enter into strength endurance
entry into the more advanced pieces of the tree)
--

Muscle Endurance Maxes -> Bright Light Bulb -> Neuromuscular coordination and timing
• Muscle Endurance / Strength Endurance
• Muscle Endurance / Strength Endurance / Maxes --
• (Supra Level ) Muscle Endurance / Strength Endurance / Maxes /
Aerobic Contractions / Battery Contractions Aerobic
Making Muscle Endurance activities aerobic (because they are spent time
moving through the continuum)
• Have to spend adequate time doing muscle endurance, first (not as
glamorous) Battery
Fatigue based effort at higher loads
• -Main limitation when starting physical fitness
• MOTOR COORDINATION / MOVEMENT SEQUENCING Max Contractions, Strength Endurance and Muscle Endurance still
present in the training

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 E N E R GY S YS T E M T R A I N I N G :

Can put in a tremendous amount of power in the initial period of The grey area is the power output differential between lactic and
time; As the time extends, the amount of power diminishes aerobic, very close

EST training is built around making the curve (power vs. time) as smooth 3 different examples of people doing work near their threshold:
as possible
• Hits the ceiling and drops tremendously afterward
3 different areas on the curve: • Hits the ceiling and drops but suffers until the finish line
• Hits the ceiling, drops slightly, recovers, hits ceiling again, etc. (great
• High End Power (Alactic) aerobic system to allow for fast recovery)
• Power (Lactic)
• Sustainable Power (Aerobic) EST training
You “flirt” with the threshold limit / limiter
*Always staying below your limit
Alactic
Stay within the time lines (its easy to stay in this system)
Aerobic EST training
Similar to Alactic, stay within the time lines flirting with the maximum of the system you are training; Allows you to
build a new ceiling

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DOSE RESPONSE:
Rate of adaptation will be FAST in the beginning stages of training, will slow down
as they age in training years

Example: 2k Row Time Trial

If you ask them questions about how it went, or where was the limiter for them, you
will get very different responses as we are all unique and have different limiters

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M I X E D M O DA L T R A I N I N G :
Improving the aspect of mixing movements together

Cyclical vs. Mixed

Bike for 20 minutes

Vs.

Farmer Carry / FLR / Jump Rope for 20 minutes

(Massive unknowns and limitations built in when comparing this to a cyclical piece of
work)

People forget the dose response when performing mixed modal work; can’t
sustain the work due to a muscle endurance limitation

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M I X E D M O DA L A E R O B I C :
Muscle contraction fatigue (main limiter for mixed modal training)

Have to start with easier contractions at easy pace and build to faster contractions and faster
paces over time

Moving from:

10 minutes:
4 Push Ups
100’ Farmer Carry
40 Single Unders

-into-

10 minutes:
4 Clapping Push Ups
100’ Farmer Carry (heavier)
20 DU’s

*More eccentric demand, more contraction with the heavier load, more power to jump
higher along with faster contraction of the wrist for the jump rope

As the time domain decreases, the pace will increase; starting from endurance/longer pieces ->
powerful/shorter pieces

To make it truly aerobic

We want to ensure there is repeatability in effort and output for multiple rounds back to back

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M I X E D M O DA L A N A E R O B I C :
Unsustainable piece of work with limited oxygen being consumed

Power into Endurance

Only 5-10% of all people in the sport of fitness that have the pre-requisite to do
this and actually NEED to do it…as its not healthy for long term health and long
term growth in fitness

• Limitation on Time
• Must have pre-requisite levels of strength to enter into this training

Have to do it with cyclical modalities up into the 50-60 second mark

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CONCURRENT TRAINING:
-Gain, Pain, Sustain

2 things to think about:

The client (the dose response; how will they be affected by the work)
The training for the day and the purpose behind it

*The key system to be aware of the most is “pain” -> very tough on the CNS and metabolic
systems
*Will only do it by itself on a training session OR on the back end of a session

Gain and Sustain Pieces can be interspersed together in the same session; If done correctly,
they won’t have a negative impact on the CNS

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G A I N : R E S I S TA N C E T R A I N I N G :
*Always remember:
Where someone sits on development of CNS based off training age / biological age
What they are capable of in their training

Absolute Strength Strength Speed Speed Strength Absolute Speed

Beginner
Motor Control/ Building correct muscle contractions / Full body training -> Get metabolic advantage, great
proprioception, immune system response, strengthening tendons/ligaments/muscles/etc., builds a great base of support
for the future

Intermediate
Looking now at breaking up certain movement patterns/areas: Hip, Upper, Squatting, Core, Plyometric/Agility, etc. ;
Moving away from full body and starting to separate pieces

Advanced
Volume vs. Intensity
Very specific with the split and purpose behind the training; can dig DEEPER into their CNS and will NEED more
recovery from those intensive pieces

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 PA I N : E N E R GY S YS T E M T R A I N I N G :

Anaerobic Interval:
Initial thoughts: 12 seconds on the FWB @ 95-100% VVH
Strong enough for the training? 2:48 min rest
Do they NEED to do EST training?

Beginner will do a 30 second piece of effort and it’s a “very hard” effort w/ Anaerobic Interval:
2:30 min rest, the beginner will think that’s “too much rest” -> they aren’t 45 seconds (W/G/M) -> x4 PCs, x5 Burpees, Sprint as far as possible
strong enough to elicit the correct dose response until 45 sec is up
5 min rest
Intermediate and advanced trainees can enter into this realm; The
athlete will NEED the 2:30 min rest b/t sets because of the effort/power *If you can do that and recover in 1 min, you either aren’t strong enough
that goes into the interval to create power or you are pacing it, this should be at a very hard effort
that won’t last much past 45 seconds

2 min @ HARD effort (90-95%) (should only last to about 2:20)

10-20 minute of recovery

*Can’t sustain it past 2:20 so it is a anaerobic piece of work (BUT the CP

and Aer systems are being used as well just not the main system working)

*Still need to be able to come back and REPEAT the work for multiple
sets; otherwise it is fatigue based training and building compensatory
patterns;

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S U S TA I N : A E R O B I C T R A I N I N G :

Sustainable / Repeatable

How long can I maintain that pace?

1:1 work/rest ratios (safe prescription upfront; goal is same time for all sets over time; can
decrease the rest over time or increase the pace over time)

Need repeatable measures to make sure the work is aerobic

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THE THREE P’S:

Priorities
Beginners
Metabolic advantage, better energy for the day, postural endurance…year later, all of those priorities have improved
so now they will adjust accordingly; The Priority leads everything

Periodizing
Blocking out certain areas; aligning periods of time to pick on certain characteristics to attack/improve...accumulation
phase -> Intensification phase (Building volume and skills –into- a phase of testing to see improvements on baseline
pieces)

Planning
Lifestyle; How do they respond to daily stressors, when do they recover the best, what time of day do they need to
train, etc. (all aspects outside of training and the structure of it goes into the planning)

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