EVOLVE STRONG WORKOUT DESIGN GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Something I say often is that it is actually quite easy to create a hard workout, but much more difficult to create an appropriately challenging workout, within the context of a broader program design, consistently over time. Doing 45 minutes of burpees would be unbelievably hard, but also probably not effective for anything other than mental toughness. So, while we definitely want our EVOLVE Strong workouts to be challenging, we don’t want them to just be hard for the sake of hard.
Instead, we want our EVOLVE Strong classes to be effective, and to be unique in a way that fills a gap in today’s group fitness environment. In this article, I want to break down our guiding principles and thought process behind our workout design, and give an example from January 2022.
We try to do a few things differently with our group fitness class:
Prioritize movements, exercises, and skills that will transfer to life outside the gym. We don't just want to train to get better in the gym... we want the things that we do inside of EVOLVE to make us better at everything outside of EVOLVE. We live in Flagstaff, and so we know that for most people, this typically means doing things outside! That’s why most of us life here, after all. So, we design our EVOLVE Strong classes to prepare you for whatever it is you love to do, whether it's biking, running, hiking, climbing, paddling, skiing, snowboarding, or just enjoying life with a sense of capability, ease, and strength. We want our program to provide a stimulus that your other activities do not.
Blend the best of what works, and discard what doesn’t. Navigating by the ever-changing winds of fitness fads can be at best ineffective, and at worst dangerous. We draw from over 15 years of personal and professional experience in strength and conditioning, personal training, Crossfit, yoga, and pilates (as well as outdoor sports including mountain biking, running, backpacking, climbing, skiing, and paddling). There’s been many fads that have come and gone, and there are many popular workout routines that are either not appropriate for many people, or that won’t translate directly into improved capability outside the gym.
Proactively target weaknesses that lead to injuries. I also have almost 5 years of experience as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, and work day in and day out treating injuries of all kinds. Common patterns and contributing factors start to emerge among many different types of injuries — and so, we build in specific elements to our classes in hopes of preventing them in the first place.
Progressively challenge our capacity over time. This could be our capacity for strength (weight lifted), endurance (breathing hard, work completed in a set amount of time), balance, coordination, mobility and flexibility.... ideally all of the above!
So, we don’t just want to create hard workouts (although they are typically pretty tough!), and we don’t want to just exercise for the sake of exercise. And, although we love that our members enjoy coming to EVOLVE and play an active role in our community, we also don’t intend to turn anyone into a gym rat. So, we are not a powerlifting program, or an olympic weight lifting program, or a bodybuilding program, or a CrossFit program, or a physical therapy program. Instead, we are an all-around program designed to optimize your capacity outside the gym.
Here’s how we take all of that information and put a workout together:
Warm Up: The warm up and activation will be based on the workout. There’s a few “go-to” warm up movements that we like, but there’s plenty of room here for athlete/coach preference
Strength Block 1: The main lift of the day is paired with a smaller "accessory" movement. The accessory movement will be something that works an important and often overlooked area, but isn't too challenging from a technique standpoint, so that the main lift can take center stage.
The “main lift” will almost always be some variation of a foundational set of movements such as squats, deadlifts/hinges, upper body pushing and pulling. These patterns work the most important muscle groups of the body, translate directly to life outside the gym, and are the most research exercises out there.
Lifting the weight is important, but that's not our only goal. Time and time again I see folks winding up my office with a injury that is linked to deficits in balance, coordination (especially on one leg), or lack of capacity in the "smaller muscles," like the calves, hip rotators, rotator cuff, etc. So we want to blend bigger, heavier lifts with some other more specific exercises to fill in the gaps.
Strength Block 2: The second block will typically feature 3-4 exercises that include core strength movements, as well as areas not hit by the big lift. This will typically be programmed at a higher rep range to ensure we get to muscle fatigue in just 3 sets, and will have slightly less rest programmed than block 1 to also keep the intensity high.
We program a variety of core work. A major focus is on isometric core exercises, which means designing an exercise that demands the core to stabilize the trunk and torso. Although these are not the only core exercises we include (we perform dynamic core exercises as well), they are a focus because this is how the core muscles work most often outside the gym.
Conditioning: Depending on the day, 5-20 minutes of high intensity circuits featuring full body movements. This will get your heart rate sky high, and ensure that we’ve really fatigued the day’s target muscle groups.
Mobility/Cool Down: There will be 1-2 stretches or mobility exercises relevant to the day’s workout to do as a cool down.
The two exceptions to this general structure are Wednesdays and Saturdays. We reserve these days for a greater endurance focus. There will just be one strength block (often programmed in a way to bias muscle endurance), and then a longer 15-25 minute conditioning effort.
Finally across a month, we want to balance consistency and variety. We want enough variation to keep things interesting, avoid boredom, and challenge a range of abilities, but enough consistency to also see progress and avoid randomness. A key principle of resistance training is called “progressive overload,” which means that in order to make progress, you must progressively challenge yourself slightly more than you have before. If every week is 100% different, then you are going to spend most of your time learning the exercise, and you’ll never get an opportunity for progressive overload. I typically aim to balance consistency and variety by thinking in three “levels”:
Level 1: The big lifts for the month are consistent. Each day will feature one main lift. This will stay the same across the entire month (with variance in set/rep schemes). This allows for refinement of technique as well as a chance to see progress.
Level 2: The accessory work has slightly more variance, but still within a theme. I typically choose two variations that work a similar muscle group, and alternate them week over week across the month. So, for example, in January, we will have a retracted overhead press and seesaw press as alternating exercises on Mondays. These are different variations targeting similar muscle groups.
Level 3: The conditioning workouts have most variance of all. We typically include similar movement patterns/muscle groups as the strength work of the day, but aside from that, aim for as much variance in exercises, time domains, and workout structure, as creativity allows. We deliver most of our program’s variance here because at this point of the workout, the goal is to 1) Get the heart rate up; and 2) Get the muscles burning. While technique isn’t forgotten about, we choose exercises that demand less skill and refinement so you can focus on going hard. As long as we pair our conditioning workouts well with our strength, the result is a killer stimulus that will undoubtedly drive adaptation and progress.
Alright, with all of that theory out of the way, what does this look like in a given month? Here’s what we’ve got on deck for January 2022:
Monday:
Strength Block 1
Front Squat
Weighted t-spine extension // Supermans
Strength Block 2
Retracted DB press // See saw press
Rack pull ups // Lawnmower row
Hollow flutter // Bench leg lowers
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
20 - 15 - 10 reps for time:
Barbell or Dumbbell Thrusters
Hanging Knee Raises or Toes to Bar
Calories on Ski/Bike
14 minute time cap
Tuesday:
Strength Block 1
Pause bench press
Balance + floor touch // Lateral band toe taps
Strength Block 2
SL deadlift // Elevated SL bridge
Band pulldowns // DB high pull
Plank shoulder tap // Plank pull through
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
3 minute tabata intervals per exercise (6x20:10); 1 minute rest between exercises
Sumo DL high pull
Plate overhead situps
Ski/bike
Wednesday:
Strength Block 1
Full range split squat
Incline DB press
Slow russian twist
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
9 minutes, every minute on the minute:
Min 1: 10 med ball skater jumps, each side
Min 2: 20 KB swings
Min 3: 15 cal ski / 18 calories bike
1 min rest
Then 10 minutes, as many rounds as possible of the same movements. Aim for at least 3 rounds.
Thursday:
Strength Block 1
Pause deadlift
Band face pulls // Band pull aparts
Strength Block 2
Lateral step down // Step down on toe
Incline bench row // Ring reverse flies
Side plank // Adductor side plank
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
12 minutes:
250m ski / 600m row
10 box jumps
10 curl to OHP
10 push ups
Friday:
Strength Block 1
Overhead press w/pause at the top
Soleus cal raises // wall sit calf raises
Strength Block 2
DB bench press // Ring push ups
Ring row // DB reverse flies
V-sit pass // Windmills
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
3x45/15
DB box step ups, alternating
Up downs
Heavy farmer''s march
1 min rest between rounds
Saturday:
Strength Block 1
Dumbbell complex. 5 rounds.
Every 3 minutes, perform as many rounds as possible with good technique. Rest 1 minute between rounds.
1 dumbbell hang cluster (hang clean + squat + press)
1 dumbbell bent over row
Conditioning: Varies weekly. Example:
As many rounds as possible in 22 minutes:
20 dumbbell thrusters
22 calories on ski/bike
20 ab mat sit ups22 up downs
A couple final notes on January’s plan, as this is consistent across most months:
There is some type of upper body pulling movement most days of the week. We do this because we find that this is the movement that is missing most from everyone’s daily life and activities. Almost everything we do is in front of us, and so we want to make sure we counter that with a solid dose of pulling backwards.
We are incorporating tempo or pause work on multiple days in our big lifts. This helps to build control and stability throughout the lift, as well as increasing time under tension.
The intention is for most people to come 2-3 days per week, or 4 at most. Doing 5 or more days of this program would invite some type of overuse injury, as we intend and expect most people to also do at least some type of activity outside the gym as well. I personally follow Monday-Wednesday-Friday for my personal workouts. I might “miss” certain big lifts (for example, deadlifts and and bench press in January). However, I will still work these patterns (hinging and horizontal pushing) in the accessory and conditioning work. The goal of the program isn’t to compete in powerlifting, so a month away from traditional bench press with quality and balance program design will not result in any real change in my real-life fitness and capacity outside of the gym.
So there you have it!
There is no “perfect” workout or “perfect” program, as perfect will always be a constantly moving target based on you, your goals, your activities outside the gym, your experience level, how much sleep you got last night, your nutrition and hydration, and countless other factors. BUT, we think that by carefully balancing all of the ideas outlined in this article, we can create a pretty damn good program for most people who want to feel great and do what they love, for life.