Exercise Prescription Template: Fill & Download for Free

I'm a fan of "basics", and you're a fan of quantifiability. I would Google "Madcow" or "Madcow 5x5", which will make you well stronger, but without bulky muscles that will slow your running.For templates to record workouts, try ExRx (Exercise Prescription) on the Internet, rummage around for their template section.I'd add only 2 elements to 5x5: glute/hip work, since those muscles are the largest in your body and hopefully are the ones propelling you forward when you run. Check stuff by Bret Contreras for things like hip thrusts, hip bridges, etc.Also, I'd put in 3 or 4 plyometric exercises. Don't buy the book, just get a basic program off YouTube or T-Nation. Jumping for height, jumping for forward distance, jumping on or off boxes or steps, maybe some sideways jumps or toes-only jumps. 5 minutes, max.The 5x5 should address core & stability, the glute work should address thrust, the jumps should address power (together with sprints once a week).

Any exercises that make your body feel very uncomfortable.Kind of a no-brainer, right? Wrong. Many people perform exercises that show signs of hurting their bodies early on, but do them regardless till they pay the price with a dislocation, a muscle tear or some other form of injury.I was one of those people. When I was still relatively new to working out, I had the belief that I was invincible. I tried following plans meant for advanced lifters and I did exercises that were awkward for my body. Advanced lifters warm up intensely, and condition their bodies to be more flexible for demanding lifts.Long story short, I wasn’t advanced, I wasn’t even an intermediate lifter. I dislocated one of my shoulders, had to go through PT, and couldn’t work out for 6 + months.But visiting my physiotherapist was a silver lining in this entire debacle. I turned into a smarter lifter, and it was all thanks to one simple piece of advice:Don’t do any exercises that make your body feel very uncomfortable.What do I mean by that?Lifting is not a one for all template. It is meant to be customized to every person’s needs. Go to the gym and notice people- no one person has the same body. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. There are people who have the shoulder flexibility of a baseball pitcher. Conversely, there are some people whose shoulders are ridiculously stiff. This applies to all body parts.Try out exercises- Exrx is a good resource to look for a variety of exercises for different body parts: ExRx (Exercise Prescription) on the Internet. If you feel like a movement feels too awkward for a certain body part, replace it with another one or try improve the flexibility of said body part if you really want to do that exercise.Also do research before blindly picking up an exercise. Here is a sample article that talks about how using a wide grip over a narrow grip for the lat pull down doesn’t create too much of a difference in strengthening the lat muscles. Wider Grip, Wider Lats: Science Tests the Broscience. You don’t need to do this for every exercise, just the ones you feel are over-complicated.All the best!

How do engineers create a schematic?Or doctors come up with surgery techniques?This is a pretty difficult question to answer...though perhaps not the same extent as surgery...It should be a matter of having had an education, lots of practice and eventually a lot of experience.In the personal training realm it's just specific to exercise science (biomechanics, physiology, motor skill development, counselling/coaching, psychology, etc...).Based on that education and experience, a trainer usually does an interview with a client (goals/objectives, training history, time available to train, etc...) then an assessment looking at various fitness quantities (movement quality, strength, endurance, flexibility/mobility, aerobic fitness).Then based on what a client is looking to achieve and where they are now, a general plan is created (outline) followed by specifics that have either through research, experience or both been demonstrated to achieve the desired result. A good program is probably a combination of what a client needs and what they want.Start at the macrocycle, build mesocycles, then individual microcycles, then training sessions. Whereas it's been my experience that people who create 'exercise programs' for themselves, generally do it backwards, they start with a workout and move on from there. Nothing really wrong with that if you have very general objectives, but it does not work particularly well if you have more specific objectives.Furthermore, even though I may outline 3-12 months of programming in advance, it can be subject to change based on adaptations that occur. So maybe you don't make as much improvement or more improvement in one area than anticipated, a smart program adapts to the person as they go through the program. It's not unlike the 'lean startup method' of build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn...Trainers generally monitor how the program outcomes are coming along and tweak appropriately. Injured? OK how can we take what we have and work around the new injury? What additional exercises will help you recover? Not adapting well to a program? Maybe we need to decrease the volume or intensity or maybe one or the other is too low. Low energy today? Didn't sleep well last night? Didn't hydrate or eat properly before your training session? OK maybe we need to make some changes, just to this particular day so you can get a training effect but without making you more susceptible to injury or burnout or overtraining.There's a lot that should go into crafting a good training program...This is why I'm always slightly amused by questions on quora asking what is the best program. I've designed thousands of what I would say are awesome programs, for the individuals or groups they were designed for. They could be useless for someone else who can't train as frequently, or want to train more. They could also be useless for someone who has general fitness objectives vs someone who has highly specific fitness objectives. The best program is the program that helps you achieve what you want/need to achieve, in the time frame you have, with the methods you can handle safely.Updated - To reflect this addition:Do they buy training plans from other personal trainers? Put them together themselves? How do they keep the trainings plans updated?Some personal trainers might buy training plans from other personal trainers, but probably not in the way you're assuming. They probably aren't (unless they are terrible and I'm sure there are those people out there) buying training programs from other trainers and then just flipping them on their clients verbatim. Not only is that unethical, it's basically stealing.However, maybe some of them are taking programs that were built for similar objectives or the same objectives and repackaging them to clients, I can't say for certain. Only that this isn't what I do.What others might also do is buy training programs, analyze them, learn from them and then use concepts from those training programs in new training programs (good trainers anyway) for other people.In truth, many training programs are more similar than they are different or unique, though. It's not just the format of the program really that matters though, it's the sequencing, it's the loading parameters, it's a lot of little different things. Starting Strength and 5x5 Stronglifts are extremely similar programs, but still different. If I take one program and change the rep range from 3x8 to 5x5, I've significantly changed that program and the effects that program will have.As a trainer, I've also still hired other trainers to work with me. I can't give myself objective feedback, so another pair of eyes (particularly of another trainer I respect) can be invaluable for identifying issues that I couldn't possibly see myself, or would be biased in seeing. Plus, it's nice to mix things up every once and a while and rely on someone else's system. I've also bought and used various training programs over the years, again from trainers I generally respect and programs that suit my objectives at the time.Certainly I learn a little each time I go through a program and that probably represents itself in the programs I design at certain instances.It's inspiration. If I was a writer, I would probably read other books right?What it shouldn't be is plagiarism, though I'm sure this is probably rampant in the industry to a certain extent, especially among newer trainers.I do have a programming system in place though. It's a system that I've spent my entire career creating and tweaking. Meaning I have several (dozens maybe more) templates that I've created over the years that allow me to plug-in-play various individualized specifics with greater ease. Basically you set the structure up of various styles of workouts, and then pick a structure that would contribute to the objectives based on what you see in your assessment, and then manipulate the sequencing, tempo and other variable as you see fit. These are time savers, I've spent dozens of hours on a single program sometimes, so if I can shorten that amount of time it takes for me to program, I'm all for it.I liken it to Ruby on Rails or Bootstrap (or a similar computer programming framework) frameworks. Ruby is the programming language, and Rails is a framework that allows me to use Ruby with greater speed and ease. Likewise, I've created several frameworks that allow me to code exercise programs with greater ease. Without Rails, it would take me considerably longer to hard code web apps and other backend computational functions. Without Bootstrap, it would take me considerably longer to set up responsive web page designs. Without my templates and systems in place, it would take me significantly longer to create training programs. It doesn't mean that I don't have to have a working knowledge of the material though. If anything having framework knowledge makes that more essential, and actually helps you maintain a higher level of expertise through the 'chunking' of information.I've digressed...Training plans get updated as new information becomes available. Build, Measure, Learn, Build, Measure, Learn...remember?So if we get a good result using a particular technique, we should probably keep at it. If we get a poor result, we should probably try something else.Every workout is an opportunity to observe how the training program is working. If a client, athlete or group is having trouble executing something, we change it. If something is too easy, we change it. If something is too hard we change it. There are thousands of nuances at work in any program design.The key factor of exercise programming is creating change. So plans always have to change, every 3-6 weeks, and that's part of any outline typically. It may be decided in advance (I often just default to 4 week cycles, but that doesn't mean I don't use 2,3 or 5 week cycles either, because I do when I feel they might be warranted for certain individuals).Ultimately and unfortunately this question is really fishing...It's asking me to summarize 4+ years of education and 8+ years of experience into a few thousand words. Which is pretty close to impossible, but it damn sure feels very difficult to explain in any kind of completeness.If I had a year, maybe I could sit down and craft something similar to the education I obtained and deliver it to somebody of the course of a few years. Maybe a few months and 4-8 months to deliver program design methodology exclusively, but I'd say that understanding program design by itself wouldn't really be enough to develop a complete/full understanding of the topic material. If you don't understand biology, physiology, biomechanics, chemistry and various other aspects of program design (if only to a basic level) a lot of program design would be lost on a person.That's why I used the analogies at the beginning of my question. How do you begin to summarize the education of an Engineer (who roughly spent the same amount of time in school as I did?)?? It's a lot of information, thousands of things accumulated over a long period of time that amount to a certain level of domain competence or expertise.Arguably an engineer is held in a higher regard than I am, because the barrier to entry in personal training is extremely low by comparison. There are many who are pretty well educated (like me) and those who spent a weekend or less getting certified...it makes quality control a little broader overall by comparison.However, I spent at least 2 semesters in classes literally called 'Program Design' and 'Advanced Program Design' and I think I did a third at one point called 'Athletic Program Design.' It was many years ago, so it's difficult for me to remember, a lot of classes kind of blurred together. That's month's of learning from textbooks (that I still keep on my bookshelf to reference when I'm designing programs) like Science and Practice of Strength Training, Periodization, Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning, Periodization Training for Sports, Advanced Fitness Assessment and Exercise Prescription, Block Periodization, Designing Resistance Training Programs, Practical Programming for Strength Training, Optimizing Strength Training, and more...If you want to know more about the specifics of what goes into a personal trainer creating a training program, that's A LOT of reading to do...Designing Resistance Training Programs is almost 400 pages alone.Honestly, how do you summarize all of that effectively on Quora?