Barbell Shrugged - The Basics of Program Design - 234

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

Mike McElroy returns to the show and we talk programming.  If you've ever wondered where to even begin when thinking about designing a program this episode is great starting point.  We get asked all the time to do an introduction to programming concepts, so here you have it!  But by no means is this an end all be all discussion on programming, this is just meant to get the party started!  If you dig this we can delve deeper in future episodes.

This week on Barbell Shrug, Coach Mike McElroy comes to town and teaches us his favorite principles on how to write a program, including how to pick a goal, how to choose a correct assessment, how much reps to put in the week. You were going so good. I know, I know, I know. I was like, he's taking it. It's like a game. It's like a game. Each level you get a little further and then you die and you have to start all over again.

What qualities you need to have? What qualities? How to figure out the end point, what books to read. How to not suck at intros. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com.

True, yeah. I don't know, man, but I... I don't know what that means. Have what? Squeeze your back muscles. How do I just have that? No. Oh, my God, man.

You don't have common sense, man. It's like when you tell a toddler to, like, flex its biceps. It's like. I don't know, man. I'm almost at the point. I'm almost at the point now. You ain't got no common sense. Just don't have babies.

Don't reproduce. A friend of ours got us a gift to take our dogs to, like, a dog trainer. And we took our dog, Tank. He's, like, about less than a year old. And we took him to the trainer. And they were showing us how to use one of those, like, e-collars. Shot collar. And we were putting it on him.

And they were like, you test it on a level. And you just see if he reacts. And you add a little more and see if he reacts. And, like, he put it on us. It's, like, very subtle. It's very humane. It's, like, all these regulations and stuff. So if he reacts. And, like, he put it on us. It's, like, very subtle. It's very humane. It's, like, all these regulations and stuff. So all the haters at home, like, chill.

Anyways, we put it on. They're adding and adding and adding the level. And then finally it kicks in and he's nothing. All of a sudden he's, like, trying to lick at it and bite it. Oh, my God. And then me and even the trainer started laughing so hard. Not laughing at him, but because he just, like. We're not laughing at you. We're laughing with you. because he just like. Not laughing at you, laughing with you.

Man, it was. You've got to be humane. It was just the funniest like face that I've ever. Because if you've seen my dog Tank, he's a goofball. He's gooby. You know what's so funny? He's like trying to lick it. It was so funny.

He was so chill when he was like a puppy. Like he was like the chillest dog. And then like when he got into his like teenage years, now he's like kind of crazy. Yeah, he's crazy. But he's gotten so big, man. We have that video where we shot, what was it, the strength test? It was a shrug strength test.

Yeah, and then he was still a puppy, so you could hold him in your arms and stuff. And now we should do that video again. We were going to wait to launch the shrug strength Test just so we could do a fun before and after. We were going to do it for an hour. That's what happens when you do the Shrugged Strength Test. Nine months later, man, it was really worth it. That was such a good piece. What's up, guys?

Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. What's up? CTV behind the camera. And our, I guess I'll call you guys special guests today. Not really guests. Coaches Kurt Mulliken and Mike McElroy. What's happening?

Welcome back to town, guys. Glad you came up. Thank you, sir. Here for the day doing some filming. And one of the hot topics that came up was, from questions that have been asked, a topic that we have a lot of passion about that we wanted to bring up for a while is programming.

Okay, programming is really big. Specifically, if you've never written a program before and you're wanting to get into like writing your first training program, we're going to talk about it today. We're going to teach you how to start to finish. And we're specifically going to aim it toward. Yeah. McElroy's the fucking wizard over here. Since McElroy's so good at it, we thought, you know, we'll do this interview style with

you. You write programming for the majority of our programs. You do the Shrugged Strength Challenge. what other programs do you write for yeah uh road well did road regionals flight flight those three how long have you been writing program like well i started i started crossfit in 2004 and then got on to i started your muscles with me yes flexing his programming design muscle I started I started uh training athletes in 2008 and so I guess I started doing individual programming which is when I would consider starting actual programming in probably 2011 okay so five years or so have you always done pretty much uh individual until recently where you started doing group? No, I mean, we did group.

Well, I opened my gym in 2009. Okay. So that's what I was saying. I wouldn't really consider that programming because I was just putting workouts on the board. What made you, like, want to specifically learn and get into, like, program and design? I don't know.

I mean, one of the things we've talked about before, like, McGee and I connected on the old OPT blog of the Big Dog blog, which was like the first kind of thought out program. It was the first kind of thought out program in CrossFit. So, so I guess starting that for myself as an early, early athlete, it kind of automatically got me thinking into there needs to be thought behind everything. And I guess I think the more I look back on it, the more like my golf history came into it, like that slow, patient sport kind of led into being slow and patient with my training.

And so I think that just kind of appealed to me, and then I started getting into it more and more. And as I learned, certain athletes came to me, and it just kind of developed like that. I don't think I saw it when I first started that like, hey, this is something I want to get into. Yeah. It just kind of developed.

So you went to school for exercise science. Now, were you training people in college? I started training people my last year of college, yeah. And you were writing program design then? Or were you kind of, how did it, like, I want to, tell me like the transition of when it started, like from just teaching people how to exercise into actually writing thought-out programs. When I started, I was doing CrossFit.

I started CrossFit.com. Did you start at CrossFit.com? Yeah, I started it. I started on CrossFit.com, but I didn't do that very long. I think I only did it for six months or maybe a year at max. Then I got on to some um some other stuff before opt and then opt's blog so but even that i still was doing that on my own but when i was writing stuff for clients i was just throwing crossfit.com type workout on the on the board whether it's

five rounds for time amrap whatever just putting stuff out there um so i did that for probably a year or two and then i started at least with uh kind of the original strength plus metcon metcon was called uh the black box method which was mike rutherford yeah um it's funny if you look back it didn't used to be like that yeah there was a big article in the journal about like the this black box method which was strength work and then a metcon so i started kind of having that thought process um like a year or two end up having the gym and then a metcon so i started kind of having that thought process um like a year or two end up having the gym and then it's just progressively moved on from there and just continuously learning on different things whether it's i mean now it's getting into more kind of

movement specific and and recovery and health and things like that whereas then it was just how can i get stronger and better so what have been some of your biggest, I guess, mentors? Or what are some sources that you learned and took a lot from? Yeah, I mean, James Fitzgerald at OPEX, I mean, he's obviously, I guess, the biggest influence as far as all the stuff that I do. Another name is – now I'm drawing a blank on his name. He's a – Will Ferrell? Yeah. He's a. Will Ferrell.

Yeah. He's an old boxing coach. I'm drawing a complete blank on his name. Oh, Ross Iname. I don't know if y'all ever heard of him. Yeah, Ross Iname. So that was kind of the first program I got on after CrossFit.com. Not to be confused with RossFit.

It was basically organized CrossFit, but he had a boxing background, so he did a lot of body weight stuff. So and obviously me being a smaller athlete, I kind of liked that stuff anyway. So it was, but it was a really unique way of getting really strong with just body weight stuff and kind of some different styles of training that I learned. And I actually trained with somebody at the time who we didn't have access to a gym. So we did everything in our garage. So it kind of worked out.

We did a lot of training in that so i learned a lot from him but um since then it's been different mentors throughout the crossfit community and outside of that you know it's funny you kind of see this transition for a couple years it was like um if you came into crossfit you didn't know what training and program design was you came in thinking that exercise was just made up random workouts and you did it and you didn't really know if there was thought behind it. And then a lot of people kind of understood. Like for me, the eye-opening part was like James Fitzgerald and OPT and following the Big Dog blog. I did a bunch of random workouts for a very long time.

And then I discovered the blog, and I started seeing them doing like sets and intervals. And I was like, wait, they're doing something like this. What does this mean? You know, I didn't have an exercise science background so and it's funny like all the sports scientists and exercise science majors everywhere they're like we've been training for years yeah I just now figured it Michael Fitzgerald and Kyle Ruth I mean both of them have coached me before and they're they've been big influences too so yeah um they've definitely helped kind of create the path what were some kind kind of difficulties or challenges that you faced

like when you first started designing programs? To me, one of the hardest things is movement selection. When you're learning the basics of program design, whether it's strength training principles or energy system principles, you have some kind of charts to go by or some percentages to go by or some kind of basic templates to go by. Yeah. But the hard thing –

Yeah, where do those templates and things come from? I mean, it's either in the courses or, I mean, you have like a prolipin chart or like a prolipin chart is an old chart that's been used forever. It gives you kind of percentages for sets and reps and different things. If you're listening to Louie, it's a primlet. Primlet chart. It's a primlet. Primlet chart. It's a primlet chart. Westside Barbell has a bunch of stuff.

Like there's strength charts out there and there's energy system charts out there. The problem is all the energy system stuff is either swimming, running, rowing, or biking or something. So now you have to plug in this mixed modal stuff and there's nothing really on there's no like there's no right or wrong on that so it's and there's no so therefore there's no real good way to teach it other than just to kind of describe it so you can there's some leeway there and some play that you have to and i think that's the the art of just being creative and being being in there like you mentioned earlier just getting in there and doing it and getting your hands dirty and figuring out by experience. Yeah. Yeah, there's not a whole lot.

I mean, CrossFit is a very new. Yeah, it's still extremely new. Extremely new, and there's not a whole lot of research. I remember we went to that one thing, and people are saying, well, they were talking about energy system training. May or may not have gotten to an argument. Yeah, energy system training. It wasn't with me. What you were saying was, like, going against, like, what,

the last decades and 50 years of research and against the grain. But, I mean, that stuff lags behind, and CrossFit is so new. Like, did you find it challenging to kind of try – like, was that a big challenge for you, like, going against the grain? Not really. I think the people that are closest to me know that – like, was that a big challenge for you, like going against the grain? Not really. I think the people that are closest to me know that, like, that's kind of – I always kind of go against the grain. So if the majority of people are doing this, I'm kind of going to do the opposite.

So I think it kind of felt natural for me. Do you do that just because you want to see what happens? I don't know. It's just who I am. I think that's a quality of a good coach is someone who's very curious. Yeah. And going against – being curious doesn't mean like going against the grain. It doesn't mean that that way or that system is wrong.

It just means that I'm in search for the best way. For sure. So just because we've been following this system for a long time, we do know it works. What if there's a better system? Why don't we try something and try to make it a little bit better? Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we mess up.

And that's the fun and the beauty in program design is we're still experimenting. Like I said, CrossFit is still so new that we're still experimenting with stuff. Are you ever afraid that you may mess somebody up? Yeah, I mean, I think the scariest thing is when you do get a little bit higher level athletes and they have bigger goals where it's maybe regionals and they're borderline there and you're kind of experimenting with stuff and you're like, you know, this could make them to that next step or it could take them away.

And it gets sketchy because you're an individual client. They're paying for individual coaching, which is obviously a higher cost, and so there's a lot on the line there. And, I mean, yeah, it gets – You know what? The thing with individual coaching, too, is, like, there's much more exposure. Right. Like, it's going to be very clear if your program is working or not.

In a group setting, it's a lot harder to see. You've got a lot of people, a lot of moving parts. And you always have the fallback that it's a group program. It's not specific to you. When you're writing something individual for either yourself or for someone else, it is very exposing. But it's a good thing because you can learn a ton from it if you do it right yeah what are what are some kind of uh let me see i'm trying to think of this question i want to ask you but like so let's say you're you're you're with a client you're

about to have a new athlete like what's the process like for you in terms of like figuring out a program right writing a program for them yeah i mean we were kind of talking about this earlier when we're talking about the the topic of of just program design in general and we want to look at it from kind of a bird's eye view of like first before we do anything you have to have one you have to have a goal a vision of where you want to go and you have to have a starting point so you have to have some kind of assessment um and i kind of think of it like a roadmap. If I don't know that I'm going to Memphis from Jackson, Mississippi, there's no way for a map to show me how to get there.

If I know that I'm going to Memphis, but I don't know where I'm starting from, there's still no way to get there. If I know I'm starting from Jackson, but I don't know where I'm going. So you have to have both those and you have to have very clear definition on what that is. Otherwise there's no, you have no basis for your program design yeah um so that's the that's the starting point sitting down having that conversation with them because to to me and i think the the higher level coaches and i think

you'd agree with this that a goal is not simply make it to regionals at x year we have to define that and what that looks like because there's so many moving factors with that so many other athletes that are you have no control over. So we have to get some specifics on what the goal is and then assess from there what the starting point is. And then from then, would you create some kind of like template for them? Yeah, so we prioritize what is their goals. So let's say their goal is regionals because that's still a very broad goal.

Then we do their assessment and we figure out what their weaknesses are and then we then even before i get into the template though we had to look at their lifestyle i think we talked about lifestyle and priorities their lifestyle their time that they can a lot to training so i can't if their goal is regionals and i write out this template that has two 90-minute sessions a day but they work nine hours a day and they have three kids at home well that's not going to work it's just setting up for failure so we've got to look at that first and look at that to look at our blueprint for what the whole picture is going to look at then we start plugging in our priorities I mean I've mentioned it before we have a girl that's made regionals a couple times and does grid

and she can only train 60 to 90 minutes a day so i can't put every single piece into every single session that i want to we have to really prioritize what's important and kind of build from there and how do you how do you prioritize like just by based off that assessment assessment that goal yeah that assessment we can do some testing and figure out what their goal is and based off that we've got to figure out priorities now um i want to ask something kind of opposite to that what uh what do you do in the case that you want them to push? Do you ever have a case where you have them change their lifestyle to fit more of a program that they need to get to their goal?

Because there's two ways you can look at it, right? Yeah. No, definitely. I think that's a conversation of how valuable is this goal for you. You know, if this is your goal, and I can use myself as a story for that, and I know you can do the same thing as a coach. Like when we've done – because I've been to regionals before and you've been to the games before.

When that was our goal, that was our vision, especially now with as competitive as it is. If that's your goal, like that has to be a very top priority. Yeah. Meaning you have to make the time to get the nutrition you need. You have to make the time to get to sleep you need. If you're not willing to do that, I'm going to tell you up front that it's not impossible, but it's going to be very difficult to get the nutrition you need you have to make the time to get to sleep you need if you're not willing to do that i'm going to tell you up front that it's not impossible but it's going to be very difficult to get to that yeah i mean i'll be honest when i first started

my first path on individual programming um as a as a client i was not i mean i was asked what my lifestyle is like and what my schedule is but i was not given the luxury of saying like okay well you know you only have two hours a day i was given something that I had to change my lifestyle to fit. And because, you know, I was willing to do whatever it took. And, you know, I think that, I think you need to, that would be a question in the beginning too, is what are you willing to give and what can change? Yeah. I think getting maybe a little bit deep into like competitive athletes, but I think that

goes back to what we've mentioned before of the wannabe athlete versus the actual athlete and the athletes don't question that i've had have athletes in the past where i've told them you know you need to be taking two ice baths a week you need to be eating this and that and they don't question it one bit and that's the person who's going to be successful at that position do you when you make a program do you provide like that kind of stuff in there do you prescribe that within your programs yeah to the to the level that that that yeah i see that necessary that's that's a rare population that needs that amount of addressing it's kind of like the example i give like people come to me and ask when paleo was real popular people come to me and ask why we can't do eat peanuts i'm like well

you're still drinking coke so let's let's address that first yeah yeah um so it's always out of the coke right yeah one thing okay another thing i want to ask you is all right so you have you've assessed their goals and now um you know what they where they want to go and you have some priorities so when you come to write the program do you when we talk about templating now what do we mean by templating like to me when i'm looking at individual that just gives me the the overall structure or skeleton of what the week is going to look like. A week or a month or how long? I do weeks at a time.

I mean, I do a week for an extended period of time, four to six weeks. Right. You build the schedule of the week. Yeah, I build the schedule of the week. You know what the rest days are. This day is going to have some strength component. This day is going to have the certain energy system. And this is the rest days and things like that.

So that's kind of the template that I'm going to go for for the next four to six weeks or whatever I determine that to be. And then that changes, though. So it's just for that temporary time period. So it's not like I'm building a template that could be used for all of my athletes. Right. That's already built in. Every athlete is going to get its own different template, and everybody's going to be totally different.

So you change pretty much based on feedback that you're getting on a weekly basis, you would say? Well, yeah, the overall template's not going to change each week until the end of that cycle. And at the end of that cycle, it'll change a little bit. Because you'll what? You'll do what? You'll retest.

You'll test things at the end of the cycle. Yeah, change a little bit. Because you'll do what? You'll retest and, yeah. You'll test things at the end of the cycle. Yeah, so going back to what we mentioned a minute ago about does the lifestyle change or does the program change, it comes down to what's actually happening. Are they making progress? So if they come to you and say, I've got three hours a day to train. I'm ready. I can do it six days a week. And you start giving them that volume and they're getting worse or it's beating them up, you know,

even though they feel like they have the time and they feel like they can handle it, they may not be ready for it yet too. So that's not something you can really always see in the front end. You've got to just monitor very closely. Yeah, I think just thinking about it, one of the most important pieces, and I think you mentioned it earlier, is just the communication between the coach and the athlete. And people have to trust

that it takes time and like i said earlier this is still we're still kind of experimenting like we know principles we know basics but we're still experimenting so that needs to be kind of discussed on the front end that like certain people adapt to certain different things so this strength program that i give you may not work for him it may work terrible terrible for him. So for the first month or so, or first month definitely, we may not get any gains because we may be on the wrong type program that you don't respond to. That's a good point because, you know, some people respond better to higher volume

or some people respond better to lower volume. I don't use speed, like classic speed days, like west side stuff for many people. But I have one athlete, literally, who his upper body responds extremely well to that. I cannot get him stronger at pressing except for when he's doing that stuff. And how did you figure that out, just trying stuff? Yeah, we were just trying stuff.

We were probably six, eight months in, and he still hadn't made much progress on, like, handstand push-ups and stuff. And then we did a speed cycle and, like, got better. So a lot of listeners, like, I want to keep this more aimed at people that don't have a coach that are trying to do this for themselves too. So what are ways that they can limit all that guesswork? Does it come down to the assessment? Like, is there better ways to build a really good assessment

so you can kind of narrow down what strength programs might work better? Or maybe what's – yeah, and I want to add to that, but, like, what are some of the principles that are governed, you know, program design, but then things that, you know, we need to test and tweak if we need to. Yeah, I'm trying to kind of hone that in a little bit. Yeah, that was a big question. Sorry.

I'm trying to think like if somebody is just an individual person looking at their own program, like making sure some of the basics are there. If you can assess, then assess and do your classic testing, front squat, back squat, deadlift. Now, we don't have to get into all the specific ratios, but generally speaking, you should know the deadlift should be higher than the back squat. The back squat should be higher than the front squat. If those things are really close or if certain seems something seems really off then you should make adjustments for that so what you're saying in a little bit is kind of write down maybe all

your lifts and look for glaring yeah inconsistencies or your reps on like strict strict gymnastics or something like that you may not be a coach and so you may not have all the numbers specifically but hopefully you can write those out and maybe see something glaring now that doesn't mean and this is where having a coach is important because typically, and we've talked about this before, when we write it for ourselves, it's very, very difficult. And that's why I've hired a coach so often when I'm just like, you know what, I still don't know, I can't do it for myself.

I think it's harder when you know more as a coach because you have so many more options to choose from. Back in the day, I probably would have had more fun and could have written a program for myself a lot faster, but now I have way too many things to consider. I can't tell you how many times I've written stuff on a board for myself and halfway through I'm like erasing stuff. Yeah.

Way too much. Well, going back to the – man, I want to – so we're in assessment right now, so we kind of gave you an idea of how to picture a goal, how to pick it. And I think the assessment needs to really be based on that goal. So would you agree that, like, you need to base your assessment, basically figure out where your starting point is based on what the end point needs to be? Yeah, so we talk about the programming is individual, and there's no set template that I have for each individual athlete.

You've got to build it. But like you said, the assessment even has to be individual to that person so if i have somebody coming to me for weightlifting they're coming to train for a weightlifting meet i don't need to test their 2k row right figure out what they're yes then say well your aerobic capacity is not where it needs to be so that's not a priority but yeah the the and especially even i get some of that in their initial conversation let's say we have a bunch of different crossfit athletes come to me and i'm talking to somebody and they're asking i ask them questions like what are your limiters what do you feel like is what do you what do you feel like your weakness is and i'll test kind of

around that so they know they're they think their overhead is weak or whatever and i'll test it and turns out it's really not something else may be the limiter um so we kind of test based off that but yeah the assessment should be individualized to their goals and their kind of background. You know, in other words, like if your goal is fat loss, like is testing your unbroken strict muscle-ups that important? Yeah, or even your squat snatch. Yeah.

Keep it simple and think about what it is you want to be or where you want to get to, and then test yourself to see like how far you are from that. Yep. I have another question if we're not taking a break yet. I was going to ask, are we taking a break? All right, fine. When we come back, Alex will reveal his question.

I was like, holy shit. And we're back. Diet, ethyl, hydro, methyl zone. Are you ready for your question? I'm ready. Are you ready for his question? Mac is not ready. Macare. Macare. I didn't ready. Testosterone? Macaray.

Macaray. Macaray. Just take more steroids. Oh, well, yeah. That's the key. What did you say? Your mic wasn't on. I said the answer to program design is just take more steroids.

Yeah, if you're not sure if it's working, if you just take drugs, it all works. Up your dose, fam. And then you learn nothing. You know what? I don't think it. What was your question? We're not going into that. Let I don't, you know what, I don't think it. What was your question? We're not going into that. Yeah, let's not go into that.

Well, I mean, whatever. Well, I just want to ask you, like, so what are, like, the main key principles that you consider with program design? Yeah, so, like, if I'm thinking about a group program that I'm about to write, or if we're talking to a group of guys or girls that are looking at their program or what their program may be I try to look at kind of some global principles with needs and human movement patterns so what are basic needs that most people have in our today's population so obviously getting stronger structural balance is a component making sure there's balance side to side on legs, arms, core strength. Everybody can get better at that.

Mobility limitations, most people have thoracic mobility limitations, hip flexor mobility limitations. So those things need to be addressed. And then most people, if we're talking about just general fitness, need more aerobic capacity. Most people don't need a ton of anaerobic work so without getting too technical with that most people need to go lift weights and do some basic conditioning work and we don't need stuff that's always laying us out on the ground we don't need a ton of like nasty assault bike intervals or nasty sled pushes or things like that if we can keep it pretty basic with strength work and aerobic conditioning then we're going to be in a pretty good good place but what

about like in terms of uh like volume and intensity like because you know we know about the classic you know block periodization uh concepts uh volume and intensity like what kind of principles govern you like how you design program in terms of those general principles those principles uh well like i said when i'm looking at a group i'm just thinking in my head with our my gyms group class so that kind of population so people who have don't have a big training history um people who uh have only been maybe they'll only been training for a year or so or less and they like i said they basic needs they need to get stronger and

better condition so generally speaking they need to learn to move better they need the movement patterns they need their they want their joints to feel healthy too so typically i stick to kind of a hypertrophy type training cycle so generally speaking eight to ten reps pretty controlled tempo with most of our strength work every now and then we'll taper that into higher intensity and faster lifts but majority of our work is kind of done in that range which oddly enough is not that popular in crossfit gyms for some reason it's usually like five reps or less and then some conditioning. Why do you think that is? I don't really know why that is.

I mean, that's where I was before. I think it's just the – I don't really know why that is, but I think the reason I've changed on that, I guess I can address that maybe and that will help, but the reason I've changed on that is because I think it helps people learn the movement pattern better and it helps their joints stay healthier longer. So most people aren't necessarily really worried about their one rep max they're worried about getting stronger for their metcon which high reps is going to help with that and they're worried about their joints feeling better and that achieves that better than heavy sets of three two

or one yeah so that's kind of why my thoughts on that have changed over the years okay so um what about the listener at home the guy or the girl that wants to start riding for themselves? They've got three goals that they picked. They've got a back squat. They've got, you know, they want to improve their 2K row time. And then they want to get, like, strict muscle-ups or something. So I'm just throwing those three things out because we could go it depends slash it's general all day long. There are a million different options here.

So let's just pick something to be, you know, concrete and narrow down a little bit. So now we have the assessment, you know, we have the big picture goal. We want to improve the back squat. Do you say, I want to do it within a certain time frame? Do you have 12 weeks? If they don't have a competition or an end point that they need to do, how far out do you usually say, like, this is what we're aiming for to have that improvement? Yeah, I mean, first you've got to set a number.

So how much do we want to improve? Then we can set the time frame. Okay. Or if we already know that we have a meet coming up, then that's our time frame, and then we set our number. But you kind of asked earlier, like, when do you change if the program isn't working or if you realize the program isn't working? So it kind of goes with that.

So, like, general rule of thumb, I would say eight-ish weeksh weeks and if it's not working then maybe tweak it a little bit so if you're on like a we'll just use west side for easy example you have a max effort day and a speed day if you do that for eight weeks you don't see any progress then maybe you should change it to more of a hypertrophy based program or different program so so for the back squat we're going to say eight weeks from now we want to try and improve so get out your calendar if you're writing and you're going to plan out eight eight weeks from now and you're going to kind of work backwards um what does the end point look like and then you work backwards and then how do you figure out how do you figure out in between how do you figure out in between and how to start how many days do you squat you squat

three days a week four days a week one day a week how heavy is it yeah i think um i know it depends it's general but um i guess tell me how you would figure that out for some of my principles for like i said i'm using group my thoughts in group classes because that's more general um instead of the depends answer generally i squat less than most people think necessary um so a lot of programs have you squatting three or four, five days a week. From my experience, that makes people feel beat up. Their knees start hurting, their back starts hurting, probably because they're not ready for that amount of volume or maybe they're not moving perfectly or whatever the case may be,

but that's just what I've seen. People need more single leg work. So I would say starting off, squatting two days a week is plenty, at least one day a week of single leg work in there. And that can be any kind of single leg work, step-ups, split squats, single leg deadlifts, anything. So that's really all you need, in my opinion, especially starting, two days a week of squatting with one of those days having some single leg work in there

or being completely single leg work. And then really that last month is when you start kind of pushing the weights and the intensity. two days a week of squatting with one of those days having some single leg work in there or being completely single leg work. And then really that last month is when you start kind of pushing the weights and the intensity. And dropping the reps. Yeah, it can be as simple as starting five weeks out with three sets of five or five sets of five or just build to a heavy five. Next week is heavy four. Next week is heavy three, two, and one. Yeah.

It sounds like you basically use a lot of your experience to craft your training programs. Yeah, I've talked with several coaches about program design and things like that, and some people that have come to me asking about program design, and some of them have maybe some of the similar education, but what I've learned is exactly that, is experience trumps all of it yeah so just doing it and then simple intuition some people are naturally better at lifting heavy some people are naturally better doing aerobic stuff I think that's some people have certain gifts and some people are naturally good at understanding whether it's understanding

people or understanding human movement or or whatever but naturally have a good knack for program design yeah and intuition for program design yeah i mean what you're meaning is why intuition is like just you're feeling like you're good yeah you're gut feeling yeah we were talking about this earlier like so much comes down to like if we're talking about movement selection if i want uh speed strength for somebody why would i use power snatches for him versus kettlebell snatch kettlebell uh swings for this person versus speed deadlifts for this person and it may just be something of like that's just your gut feeling yeah and that just takes time of experience or even simpler uh going back to the back squat

example how often do you do back squats versus front squats versus front squats with chains do you start with variety or do you start simple and then add variety later how do you decide how often to do the actual movement that you're trying to improve that's a good question and that goes with this goes this answer goes with energy systems it goes with any movement i start as simple as possible ah the simpler, the better. Keep principle number one. Keep it simple in the beginning. Keep it simple, stupid. If you have an energy system chart and you see the time frames,

start with rowing and those specific intervals that you see written. It's going to work. Why not get fancy? Don't get tricky because you don't fully, that intuition hasn't developed yet. So you don't understand the energy system well enough to put the movements in there that needs it to get the response. And you probably haven't done it enough yourself. That's where I think being an athlete helps with coaching too.

I don't think I should stop just because I'm not making regionals anymore. I don't think I should stop training because I quit learning. I quit. I don't remember what it feels like. I can't remember who said it. I think it was Jim Wendler. He was talking about his 531 program. He's like, I just keep it simple because at first because that's just what I know.

Well, you know what? It's easier to monitor that way. It's easier to know what's working, what isn't. If you have so much chaos, you don't know what is working and what isn't, and it's hard to make tweaks because you don't know what to adjust. Yeah, it's like a science experiment. You're not controlling variables. Yeah, let's like a science experiment. You're not controlling variables. Yeah, let's take a little rewind to before all of this for everybody.

And I think we can kind of empathize. Yeah, we can empathize with the people that are just coming into this with a buddy and they're like, hey, what do you want to do today? And he's just like, let's just fuck each other up. And you do like the worst, hardest workout. You don't have any goals. So adding in like the assessment and the priorities is a huge revelation that would have saved you a lot of time. I think that's why a single leg works so well is because it's so simple.

You can't mess it up. You're overloading your legs. I mean, you can't mess it up, but you're overloading your legs, and people need it, and it gets them more balanced, and it works. But how do you – okay, so, yes, that is that factor. But you also got to keep in the factor of, like, keeping it interesting and entertaining for them because they're arguably – I mean, for most people, unless they're training for something, like, competitively, they're going to, like –

They're going to have fun. They're going to have fun. Yeah. So community is a big part of it. So, again, let's take it back to the group class in our CrossFit gym at home. So if I'm a new coach and I've got these energy system charts, but I don't want to just program back squats and rowing every day. So let's still take it as simple as possible within CrossFit.

So instead of doing muscle-ups and squat snatches for a five minutes on, three minutes off interval piece, let's just do burpees and kettlebell swings. It's still a lot simpler than the real complicated kind of sexy stuff, but you can still tweak it and make it fun. But it's not just rowing. Right, it's not just rowing. I'm curious. You keep on bringing up these energy system charts.

Where do you find these things? I mean, you can look them up online. There's a bunch of different kinds. Some of them are in the courses that I've taken. I heard prelim charts. I know that. Energy system charts are in the courses that I've taken. I heard prelim charts. I know that. Energy system charts are a little bit harder to come by, and there's a few different variations of them.

What are some of the ones? You can search them. I mean, probably the most common one is the zones. You've got zone one through five. Zone five being basically max effort. Zone one being basically conversation pace. And then everything in between there. And you use these how like again it goes to train so when i'm looking at designing crossfit workouts most of the

time i'm looking at training a piece of the energy system as opposed to just giving a workout out there so i use those to kind of guide my thoughts with time frames and rest intervals and things like that so that's what i was saying keep it simple if you find the chart and it gives you because some of these charts will give you this they would say this zone or this level is this amount of work with this amount of rest this amount of intervals right so take that write it on a sheet and then plug some movements in there that you know people can just move through and not that's good that's good advice yeah and then to go back and even keep it simpler again if if you're not very good at assessing what energy systems need work we talked about you wanted to improve your 2k row that's

like one of the examples just practice that time domain for a start right like just practice being better like around that time so breaking it up and that kind of pacing like you don't have to have that full understanding of it yet to get started and prove it you don't know all your strength qualities and go down those rabbit hole with that you just know that i want to raise that number up so i'm going to do that movement more yeah and i would even challenge and maybe maybe this is a principle but i would challenge most crossfitters to start by going longer and slower than they're comfortable with. Could be one principle.

What do you mean? So typically, like you said, 2K rows, that's going to take 7 to 10 minutes, depending on the person. So instead of just training that 7 to 10 minutes, let's back up a little bit, slow down a little bit, and go longer and slower than that. Maybe that's just 15 minutes. Maybe it's 20 minutes. Maybe it's 20 minutes. Maybe it's 45 minutes.

But go longer and slower and then build into that intensity and just see how that treats you. Because you have to learn pacing from that standpoint. You can't just always go out. If you go for 45 minutes, you'll learn real quick that you have to pace for that scenario, especially if there's wall balls and burpees involved. Do you keep logs or records of your athletes' performance? So when you are trying something new, you see,

oh, well, this didn't really work that great. Yeah, I mean, as much as I do organized programs and stuff, like I said earlier, he had an Excel sheet pulled up, and I get overwhelmed by that. You do this, don't you? Yeah, I have logs of everything. Most of my stuff, unfortunately, is up up here which is not good for translating it but um yeah it's more of that intuition type thing but i mean i chart it and i see people when they make

progress and what but i don't have it broken down into a separate spreadsheet like he probably does yeah yeah well what you were saying earlier um so what would you say to somebody who was like thinking about trying to get into program design? Like, what would you tell them? I would say either find a good coach near you that can help mentor you, that can help train you. The first thing I would do instead of going and taking a course, I would say get coached by somebody who is educated in it.

Get somebody to program for you. Oh, get somebody to program for you. So you can feel it. Yes, you can see how it goes. You can see it. You can in it. Shadow somebody. Get somebody to program for you. Oh, get somebody to program for you. So that you can feel it. Yes, you can see how it goes. You can see it, you can feel it, because that's, I think McGee and I talked about it, that's the advantage that I had going into that OPEX course is that I'd been doing his programming

for two or three years at that time when I went to the course. So when he started telling me the principles, I could look back at all my experience of training and doing those things and be like, oh, that's what that was training. I 100% agree with that. If you don't experience it, there's no way for you.

That's why I say I think it's important for me to keep training. Yeah. Because if I'm not, I'll forget what an aerobic session feels like. I'll forget what an anaerobic session feels like. I'll forget what a hard hypertrophy session feels like. You forget that stuff, and then you lose touch with programming, I think. I think a good starting point is just start writing programming. Yeah. And if you're not comfortable giving it to someone,

and I don't even mean charging. I mean just like applying it to someone, start with yourself. Experiment on yourself. Stick to it. And you'll see how I think a lot of it comes down to how well you can stick to a program comes down to how well you might be able to program, period, because, you know, I've actually dealt with that in coaching. I can kind of lose concentration with the programs I'm writing sometimes.

I'll write a 12-week idea template, and then three weeks into it, I already find myself wanting to change. It's like you've got to stick to it to make sure it's working. You've got to stick to it. It takes discipline. And I think if you can do that yourself, it's going to help translate into your program. So just start with writing programs. It doesn't matter if they're perfect or right.

Just get comfortable writing them. Yeah, and one tip I would say for writing it for yourself is to, I typically write one week at a time, but one tip for writing it yourself is to go ahead and write four or five weeks out because you're going to be less likely and force yourself to stick to it. Because if you write it week by week or day by day, you're going to be less likely and force yourself to stick to it. Because if you ride it week by week or day by day,

like you're going to go in the gym and switch it up. You don't mean like ride all the workouts out. You mean ride out. If you're doing it for yourself, I would say get it done so you can't go back and change it all the time. Yeah, gotcha. Just to trick yourself. So think of yourself as an athlete and just go ahead and –

So key principle number one. Keep it simple. No, pick a goal and a good assessment of that goal starting point ending point yep number two um number two is look at lifestyle and your circumstances right so that you can set up a good program all right and then the next one was you just said it keep it simple keep it simple yeah yep um so when it comes to writing for yourself, have you ever done that before? I try not to. Why is it so hard?

Let's talk about that for a second. What are some of the biggest things that you run into when it comes to writing for yourself and challenges there? I think the thing I hear the most is people avoid their weaknesses for whatever reason. And I don't know if why this – maybe this is one of the things that – It just almost happens naturally. You can't even help it maybe and maybe this is something one of the

innate things that makes me a good program design coach but i tend to do the opposite i tend to like over attack my weakness yeah and so i end up overtraining my weakness so either way you're biased towards something so you either completely avoid your weakness or you over attack your weakness yeah i'm kind of the over attack on it yeah i definitely overdo it i think i've seen you actually two weeks in i'm like my back is destroyed we talked earlier about kind of panning out and trying to get an overview of like where your holes are but it like let's say you're writing programming for like a group and then you you you put all the sheets out in front of you for the past three months and, like, I've done this. This is experience. I realize, like, shit that I hate, like super long aerobic stuff, it was lacking big time because I hate it.

And push-ups also. I hated those at the time. Oh, I think that could be a whole other show topic is removing your own coaching biases from programs you – or training biases from programs you write. It took me laying it out in front of me and, like, I have done these people a disservice. We talked about those principles,

but I guess to kind of close this out, some things that I put into place for myself, for my gym, so I don't do that so much, is some simple principles as far as, or specifics, single leg work once a week. It has to be in there. Horizontal pulling has to be in there once a week. Strict upper body pulling has to be in there once a week. Long aerobic stuff has to be in there. Horizontal pulling has to be in there once a week. Strict upper body pulling has to be in there once a week.

Long aerobic stuff has to be in there at least two times a week. So those principles, just those simple things right there, give me at least a little bit of structure to where I'm not completely getting away from it. So what principles have you put into the Shrugged Strength Challenge since you've written? All of those. Give me some examples.

Like what are some of the main things and that lead to some of the goals that we're going yeah the single leg work is there um even for the higher level athletes the single leg work is there um structural balance work in in a functional movement type manner so whether it's kind of biased towards mobility in the warm-up or um overloading like yoke carries and things like that for structural work that keeps it fun and entertaining yeah um and that's probably the the biggest things i would say and you can kind of speak to this too but the biggest things is the single leg work is there the structural work is there but i use enough variety to keep people entertained it doesn't look like accessory work

right that's that's one thing i noticed hiding the accessories yeah that's one thing i noticed about the the program is there's so much variety. But my question is, like, where do you get all this variety from? Like, you're like the Encyclopedia Britannica. Stay curious. The who? The Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm an exercise guy.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Whatever. Wikipedia of fucking movement exercise. Like, you be pulling out stuff. I just said you be. You pull out, like, movements.

I'm like, I've seen that before, but I've never heard the name. Like, what are some resources? Do you use any resources, like, for movement selection or exercises that you just use? Or where do you get all this stuff from? I'm not an organized person. Yeah, I mean, I think of, like I said, I try to think big picture, so I think of what I'm looking to accomplish,

and then I just try to remember the movements that can get that accomplished. So you just naturally got it all up in your head. I guess so. Have you read any books or anything like that? What are some books that some people can read that you recommend about program design i'm almost hesitant to to recommend them because i think the bigger piece is getting started yeah um i think the i think it's more worth it to just get started and get moving in it um because because crossfit is still so new there's no books on crossfit so you're gonna read stuff but you that you still have to get in there and get practice with

Practice riding workouts. It doesn't matter, like, creative or not, you know, structured or not. Just practice riding workouts. I mean, two kind of go-tos are polyquin principles is great for just basic strength training. Yes. And then there's lactic threshold training, which is good energy system. There's a couple different, just like running energy system books. Training the New Alpinism is a really good book for understanding energy systems.

It's a book about training the new alpinism. Steve House and actually Mark Twight wrote a forward in it. Mark Twight, owner of Jim Jones. He's got a bunch of pieces in it. But it's a really good resource on getting a really basic understanding of energy systems joel jameson how to know how they yeah how to know how they feel um and it's it's it's geared towards like training for mountaineering and alpinism but it can be applied to just getting better work capacity it's pretty awesome uh joel jameson has a lot of stuff on yeah joel james what episode number um what was what's the name of his book

again uh eight weeks out is his blog oh um anyways yeah joel jameson's book is fantastic bunch of really good energy system training um and actually it's as applicable as it can come to crossfit training yeah because he's mma guy yeah so it's very mixed um what other books the ross anime books are they have a lot of stuff in there. One of them is a body weight only book, and one of them uses dumbbells and stuff like that, but it has a lot of stuff on why he does certain things and introduces some stuff, so there's some basics in there too.

Joel Jameson. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Joel Jameson was episode 120. Episode 120, yeah. That was a while ago that was uh may 28 2014 yeah all right so yeah because crossfit is so new you just you're just like man just go get your hands dirty and just go do it yeah start doing it and get somebody to do it

for you that's that's huge because uh you know i've had i've, and every time, like, I see their program and I ask them questions about, like, well, why are you giving this? Like, I definitely learned something. And I program for a guy like weightlifting, but I take a lot of stuff that I've learned from, you know, Travis and Zach, and I've applied it to him. Yeah. So definitely having somebody, like, coach for you and program for you and then asking them why they're giving that to you

and what they're trying to do. I don't know that that ever stops. The last two times I've hired coaches, which was Michael Fitzgerald and Kyle Ruth, both times I knew that it was not really realistic for me to get back to regionals. I mainly did it so that I could learn from them and keep up to date with things that are going on. You use them.

Yeah. You're a user. I use them all. I think he knows that. But, I mean, if you're going to try to get good at programming design, you're going to have to have some natural curiosity and then some natural just gut and, like, go with your gut. Those are qualities that you're going to have to probably have.

And those are things that, again, like you talked, you can kind of develop that intuition over time. And the athletes that ask you the most questions and get at you as a coach, they're, they're learning and you're learning. So it's good. Awesome. Yeah. I think the closing point could be, uh, to never feel like, you know, at all. Yeah. Yeah. Stay curious, keep learning, keep learning from others, stay open-minded and just keep doing it too. Yeah. You'll get, you'll get better over time. Cool. Awesome guys. Anything else you want to add before we take off? I'll send out some program design stuff from my website,

ironsharpcoaching.com, if you want to just send out emails on program design stuff. I have a mastermind group right now that's already rolling. I don't know that I'm going to launch that again, but just sign up for the emails, and I do send out information on it. You're teaching people how to do program design? Yeah, teaching the principles. You did one on exercise selection as well recently, right?

Yeah. Well, that's kind of included in the mastermind one. Cool. Yeah, stuff. And if you want to check out the program that we mentioned that he is the program designer for, Shrug Strength Challenge, you can go to shrugstrengthchallenge.com. What's the website got? It's got videos and all kinds of info on it.

You can sign up to do the Shrug Strength Test, the OnRamp. All that's designed by mackroy mackroy is a freaking like i said he's a wizard i've been on the goal of the program is to add 50 pounds to your back squat and then decrease your hell in time by three minutes and we've already got people you know three months near that goal in 90 days in 90 days so maybe we need to come up with a bigger goal. And we're not talking one or two of them did it. We're talking an average.

We took the average of everyone's numbers because we track all that stuff, and we're seeing those improvements. It's been fantastic. And that's a direct result from, I mean, you heard him on the show. Like, McElroy, this is what he does. This is his thing. He's got principles. He's got principles, and he's been learning and applying and doing doing so i may not be good at entertaining but i'm good at

no man you you you are you are the you're the man with program what have you learned from the shrug strength challenge so far yeah that's a good question the biggest thing i've taken away from that is how even more so and this is probably where one of the biggest things that have changed in my view on program design in the last year or so and it this kind of embedded that even more is how much more people need to focus on movement and movement quality and staying healthy yeah yeah all that focus on that has made their numbers go up and made their progress go up and made them enjoy the program that much more and it just encourages that that needs to be a priority in everybody's program. If you take one month, at least take one month to work on it, it could make the next 10, 11, 12 months that much better.

But if you just never put the time into it, you're not going to fix it. You're not going to fix it, and you're not going to see that result. It doesn't just magically happen. Cool. So one more thing, too. Make sure you head over to barbellbudu.com. The book was just released, The Collective Writings

of Chris Moore. Is that the right website? Barbellbudu.com. Barbellbudu.com. Yep. Get the book. It's not pre-order anymore. It's on sale now.

It's all three of his writings put into one book. It's pretty sweet. I don't have a copy of it here right now. We had one earlier, but make sure you go check it out.

I don't know who he is if they don't know. And if you don't know who Chris Moore was, Chris was a host on the show, a huge mentor of ours, a member of Barbell Shrugged for several years, and a very dear friend of ours. He passed away in June earlier this year. And this book was created as a collaboration of his other books that he'd written to support his family. So make sure you go check it out.

It's awesome stuff. Thanks, guys. Sweet. Sweet.