Tony Gentilcore

Because heavy things won't lift themselves

What Planning For a Dinner Party Can Tell You About Program Design

dinner party

Both my girlfriend and I have been in our apartment together since last June, and in that time span, while we’ve always talked about hosting more, we’ve only had one occasion where we had a group of people over.

Back in November, for her birthday, we had a small gathering of mutual friends stop by at their own discretion where we had all sorts of catered food available, wine, hors d’oeuvres, as well as some homemade goodies like Lisa’s (grassfed beef ) meatballs that lasted all of ten minutes once I got my hands on them.

All in all, it was a very successful night and everything went off without a major hitch.

As you can imagine there was a fair amount of prep work involved:  sending out invitations, deciding how much alcohol to buy (for the record, a shit ton), what kind of music to play in the background (Wu-Tang got shot down really quick), ordering the food, making the food, and of course, Lisa going into HAZMAT mode cleaning the apartment.

In all fairness, this isn’t to say that we have a dirty apartment.  Oh no no no no no no.

Outside of a few instances where I’ll forget to take out the garbage, or happen to throw my dirty socks on our pure WHITE couch, or leave toothpaste all over the bathroom sink, or any number of “brain farts” on my end, we keep a fairly clean apartment.

Anyways, this weekend we’re hosting another small get together with the other CP couples – Eric Cressey and his wife, Anna, along with my other business partner, Pete Dupuis, and his lovely fiance, Katie – and I couldn’t help but notice some interesting parallels between planning for a dinner party and program design.

I know, I know……where could I possibly be taking this? Bear with me.

As I mentioned the other day, I’m going to be speaking at a local Boston Sports Club later this month talking some shop with personal trainers from around the area. One main theme I’m going to touch on is program design.  Even more specific to that, exercise selection.

Think about it this way: If you’re planning on having guests over for dinner, and you only have a few hours to tiddy up the place, where are you going to concentrate your efforts?

  • Vacuuming and mopping the floors?
  • Cleaning (and putting away) all the dirty dishes in the sink?
  • Making sure all the laundry is put away?
  • Lighting a few scented candles for some added ambiance, perhaps?

Those all sound like winners to me.

By comparison, when working with a personal training client, and you only have – if you’re lucky – two, maybe three hours per week with them, what should be the main emphasis in terms of exercise selection?

Granted, much of what you do is going to be dictated by their goals, injury history, training history, to name a few…..but lets take fat-loss for example.

For me, I’m going to concentrate my efforts towards compound movements that allow me to hit as many muscle groups as possible (think:  squats, deadlifts, rows, push-ups, etc), utilizing supersets (pairing antagonistic muscle groups together rather than doing straight sets of ONE exercise), including more metabolic type training to increase their heart rate (intervals, finishers, circuits, at the end of each training session), and of course, discuss proper nutrition (lets ditch the Dunkin Donuts post-training).

Seems pretty logical, right?  Again, if I only have a limited number of hours per week with a client, I’m going to use that time as efficiently as possible.

Why, then, would having your client perform 15 lb standing tricep extensions followed by 1-legged lateral raises while standing on a wobble board even enter the equation?

Sadly, I see this type of programming a lot.

Going back to the dinner party analogy, that’s analogous to me vacuuming the insides of my shoes in the in the bedroom closet.  It makes absolutely no sense!

It’s majoring in the minor, and a complete waste of time.

Far too often I see trainers focus on minutia, sweating the details at the detriment of actually giving their clients results.

When you think about it, it’s the Pareto Principle to a “T.”  80% of your results are going to come from 20% of the work.

People move less and less nowadays.  Oftentimes, the few hours per week they DO spend in the gym is their only form of exercise they perform. And what…..the best some trainers can come up with is stand there and watch their client walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes?

Riiiiggggghhhttttt.

I am by no means suggesting I know the best way to train every client – particularly yours. All I’m saying is that when it comes to program design – and by default, exercise selection – trainers need to take it upon themselves to think critically and ask: “is this really going to get my client the best results in the quickest, most time efficient way possible?”

If not, then start over.

Excuse me while I go organize my He-Man underoos.

Did I just blow your mind? Make (or ruin) your day? Leave a comment, then share this with EVERYBODY.
  • Barath

    I think I get the point of the article, summarized below:

    Air freshener to ward off the fart smells – Bicep curls.
    Tearing up the receipts from the titty bar – heavy good mornings.
    Convincing the exotic chick to leave before the guests arrive – I-legged BOSU ball Romanian deadlift mofo!

  • Scott

    What I don’t get is how this concept of 80/20 gets lost in translation with trainers. I’m an engineer. I spend 1.5 hours 3 times a week doing my foam rolling, mobility stuff, working out, and stretching. I know for a fact that I could put together a better workout then half of the “trainers” I have seen at local gyms.

    Its just incredible to me that there can be such a disconnect between one trainer and the next. You wouldn’t see an engineer designing buildings that will fall over before construction is even complete. Yet you have trainers completely disregarding the foundation that strength and condition is built upon. Compound movements have proven over and over again to get better results, while spending less time in the gym than some of these other marathon workouts.

    There should be some trainers code that states “I will build every workout program on the foundation of compound movements”. That is of course unless the trainees have physical reason that said movements cannot be performed. But in that case these people shouldn’t be seeking out the aid of 99% of the commercial gym trainers.

  • JJ

    Being a PT in a commercial gym, I see a lot of this. Some of the most requested trainers, from a very old school NASM background pride themselves on having oh so many clients with excellent ‘core stability’ because they train ‘core stability’ through unstable surface training when it’s definitely not needed and focus on tiny ass muscle groups because their clients think that working that particular area it’s going to get toned as hell – 2 years down the line, their clients can stand one legged on a bosu ball whilst scratching their nuts and saying the alphabet backwards, but they haven’t lost an ounce of fat.

    Meanwhile, I’ve only been at my new gym for 16-18 weeks now and all my fat loss clients have lost nothing less than 10% body fat over a 12 week period – and they all squat, deadlift, press, farmers walk, kettlebell swing, pull up variations.

    I’ve been told by some other trainers that I’m ‘Not as good as them’, because I don’t follow the old NASM OPT model and follow their progressions. Fuck that shit. My runners run quicker, my rugby players hit harder, my tennis players move faster and my weight loss clients lose weight – none of them give 2 shits about Stability Ball Bicep curls when they can whack out unassisted chin/pull ups.

    I don’t have all the answers, never will. But what you’re saying is an all too common trend.

  • Sue

    This is why I’ll never pay for personal training at my gym :(

    • Anonymous

      Sue -

      I know I come across as some cynical a-hole sometimes when I talk about commercial gyms, but there are PLENTY of highly qualified trainers out there. Of course, I can’t say this about your gym, but it’s just a matter of doing a little research on your end of who would be a good fit for you and your needs.

  • Tyler

    Tony, is this talk in Boston going to be videotaped and available for people to view at their leisure? I am a new trainer and don’t want to be that guy.

    • Anonymous

      No…..it’s not going to be a major production. Just me, my laptop, and like 20 people.

  • Roypumphrey

    I hate to say it but I think a lot of times it’s just easier for “trainers” to “teach” a bosu ball bicep curl than a proper squat or lunge.

    How hard can it be? Stand on a Bosu ball and curl a dumbbell….

    However, teaching someone to actually squat (even with body weight) can be pretty challenging sometimes and I don’t think a lot of people in the field, especially in commercial gyms, have the education, understanding and personal experience with the big lifts to teach them correctly and understand their value in a program.

    Circus tricks look cool, and give the illusion that the trainer is capable and you’re getting a good workout without having to do those “dangerous” squats and deadlifts. We know it’s all BS, but the newbie in the gym usually doesn’t.

    Think about it, a lot of the people reading the awesomeness that Tony puts out here are doing and teaching the compound lifts already. We usually do them when? Early in the workout when your energy is high, focus is on point and you can SFW. Then once we’re smoked we move onto the minor things. Why? Because the minor things are easier. It doesn’t take a lot of focus to do some curls or side raises, so seriously how hard can they be to teach?

    So if you’re a “trainer” and you basically suck at what you do you’re left with majoring in the minor to cover yourself and give the illusion that you know what the hell is going on. Sad, but that’s what I experience all the time.

  • Michael Richards

    I work at a personal training facility and I do see this very often. However I have been working my way up in this business and my boss has now given me the opportunity to be the lead program designer! Before it was just a free for all, all trainers used their own philosophies to dictate what their clients would do. I have to attribute much of this to you and EC as you guys have consistently been there to help me. Maybe not on a personal level, but your articles, blog posts and a few random e-mails have made a world of difference in my training. Thank you!

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