How to detect poorly designed fitness programs w/ Chelsey Part 1

The process to become a personal trainer is lackluster, to say the least. There are THOUSANDS of “certified personal trainers” aka CPT's, who are designing illogical programs and generating MILLIONS of dollars off the ignorance of the consumer. Within fitness, people believe that if you are fit or look the part, that you must know how to help others achieve the same results. As we continue to develop and release program breakdowns, we will help the reader / viewer / YOU distinguish the difference between a fitness professional and a fitness influencer. The two can be misconstrued and amalgamated into the same – this couldn't be further from the truth.

Chelsey and I will construct a list for helping you detect BS within a fitness program. We will be calling this list “The Commandments of Programming.” For the first video, here is the program that we broke down.

One of the first things I look at when analyzing a program is who is it for? What are their goals? Has an assessment been performed to eliminate any red flags for underlining heath conditions such as coronary artery disease (read more about ACSM's CAD Risk Stratifications here)? If it's an online program design, the individual who is selling the program should schedule a call to review your medical history analyze your movement (Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull, Unilateral, Jump) and then have weekly check-ins. Otherwise, the trainer is just sending you a cookie cutter program that he/she has sent to hundreds, possibly THOUSANDS of others, not giving a flying SHIT about you. Here are three tenets of a well-constructed fitness program:

1- Multi-jointed exercises should begin the workouts and then single-jointed ones follow near the end i.e. Bench Press first, chest flies at the end.

2- Rest. If the rest periods are less than 120-seconds, that is typically too short (unless an endurance athlete.)

3- How many sets (typically between 9-15 per workout per muscle; 10-40 per week.)

4- Rep variety. A cookie cutter shitty program will have every exercise be 3×10 or 3×15.

If you have purchased any programs in the past, please send them to us at info@showupfitness.com

If you want to become a personal trainer, Show Up Fitness Level 1 Coach is better than any certification. Two months of our in-person (San Diego / Los Angeles / Austin) and ONLINE personal training internship program is better than ANY certification. We have the nations best fitness internship.

Written by: Chris Hitchko