How Design your Fitness Program
Designing your own program can feel alot like throwing darts at a dartboard or gambling and seeing what you lose and gain. My goal here is to give you a simple set of rules or tools that you can follow to help make it simple. There’s no need to guess. You’ve probably seen articles where the author claims they have 3 steps to a flatter stomach or bigger arms. This isn’t that. My goal here is to show you a few things that have worked for my clients over the 14+ years of being in the industry that I’ve learned from both my library and my experience. I hope this helps!
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This stage is simple, imagine you were building a house. You would want to build it so it wouldn’t break down as you add rooms, floor/ doors, and windows. A solid foundation. The Stability aspect is doing exercises and movements to strengthen areas of the body that are meant to stabilize you to make you stronger and increase your overall endurance. Parts of your body that should be stable for example are your knees, back, and elbows. There is nuance to stability but I use these examples as strengthening these areas reduce the bodies susptability to injury while also increasing your general strength. The mobility aspect is important for making sure parts of your body remain mobile AND strong. Areas like your Ankle, Hips, Upper Back, Neck and Wrists. When these areas become stiff the area’s that are meant to be stable become unstable!
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How we move is important. Not just that we do it but how we do it. There are a few functional movements that we need to be able to do in order to live a sustainable life. They are Squat, Hip Hinge (Dead Lift), Push, Carry, Plank, and Glute Bridge. When any of these decline that’s when people tend to feel “age” coming for them. Building a routine based on these skills is a great way to retain your youth and independance. Over time your strength will decline more and more as you grow sedentary weakening your bones and joints. I can’t state enough how much developing these skills can go a long way.
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Once you develop what skills you want to work on then you want to start figuring out what you can handle. I call this capacity and load endurance. How much can you move and for how long. Developing your strength to lift more for a longer period of time creates a body that is less prone to injury and more prone for fun. I’ve heard the phrase I can’t do that, I have work in the morning is pretty common. However imagine not saving your body for work but instead being able to work and play. Sounds good!
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Lastly this is the typical end goal of most people who want to workout. Power and Athletic performance. This looks different for everyone. Playing with your niece or nephew, son or daughter, going out with friends whether you’re drinking or just going to the park. Our lives require a lot from us and our only wish is to be able to do whatever that or those things without stopping. What ever your program is you build the goal of this blog and others is to extend your play span.
For now just to keep it simple. Look at training your body as a 4 stage process. With each step being crucial for the next. Ask your self and be honest. Which of these training phases do you fit into? If you have a solid foundation then it’s time to move on to Skill Building. If you’ve developed solid skills ie; Squats, Chest Press, etc, Its time to start developing each skills Strength and Endurance.
These stages are built to improve 2 main components of athleticism and life style. I’ll be expanding on these components at a later date.
Functional Movement & Resistance Training
Cardio Respiratory Training
