PROGRAM DESIGN CASE STUDY

SHOP TRAINING CASE STUDY

A friend of mine contacted me earlier in the week to get my thoughts on training while out of town (and I mean out of town for an extended period of time, not just the weekend).  More specifically, he said he had "the intention of doing plenty of strength work without setting foot inside a gym."

I already had a decent idea of the things he was interested in, but before I could actually put together a program for him, I needed to determine a few more things:

• What are his goals?
• What type of training does he actually enjoy?
• What has his training consisted of for the past 6 months?
• How much time per week can he commit to the program?

After a little back and forth, I sent him a Google Doc containing the first 2 weeks of his program.  I will share the details in a subsequent post.

The next order of business was to establish a baseline.  In order to have meaningful feedback at the end of the program, we need to know exactly where he is today.  That means MAX OUT DAY!!  However, since one of the criteria was "without setting foot inside a gym," that meant we had to get a little creative with our exercise selection and testing criteria.  The test was as follows:

1-arm pushups - max reps with each arm

1-leg squats - max reps with each leg

Pullups - max reps

5k time trial

Since we didn't have the luxury of added resistance, we just had to use a more challenging variation of each particular exercise.  Also, that makes it difficult to actually find a 1-repetition maximum, so instead we opted for max reps of each particular exercise (since we were going with harder variations, the total reps stayed relatively low).

Here is our trade-off:  I gladly put the program together, and it was completely gratis.  I will be available for ongoing technical support for the duration of the program (should he need it).  In return, he will keep detailed records of his performances throughout the week and his progress over time.  When possible he will provide video content that I can use on my blog.  Also, at the end of the program, if he is happy with his progress and has achieved his short-term goals, he will write a guest post in which he details his experience with my programming.

A couple of things I hope to determine with this case study:

• I know I can effectively program for myself, but can I do it for others?
• Equally as important as results, can I put together a program that has the correct mix of things "someone should do" and things "someone likes to do"?