What is a Program, and Why do we use them?

“Failing to plan is akin to planning to fail” – Benjamin Franklin

Although success in any venture is never guaranteed, there are proven strategies that can substantially increase the likelihood that your investment will not be in vain.  When your investment is YOU, your time, your physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing, ensuring that you both minimize risk and maximize the possible outcome becomes even more essential.    This is exactly why we perform a detailed health & medical history, a thorough assessment or screening, and create a customized exercise PLAN for all our Personal Training clients.  Each plan is designed specifically for each client, based on their needs and goals to work on strength, flexibility, fat loss, endurance or a combination of all components.

Your program is a PLAN, a written document that enables our Program Development Team to communicate with our staff of Professional Coaches, who facilitate your training sessions.  The Program Developer uses information from your assessment to identify the exercises that fit your body and ability on Day 1.  In turn, they are organized on your program in a way that promotes an efficient flow and allows you to move through your workout in a timely manner. 

Your program provides guidelines as to how much weight or resistance you should start each workout with, along with the number of sets (how many times you will repeat each exercise), the number of repetitions you will perform each set, and the amount of rest you should take between sets.   It enables us to take the guesswork out of the process.

Sometimes additional instructions are required so that the Coaching Staff knows exactly how to modify an exercise to help you connect better with the movement or the “why” behind the movement.  That is all documented in your program. 

Your program also acts as a journal to allow you to communicate with our Team.  You help us by recording how many times or repetitions you perform of each exercise, which in turn enables us to gradually increase the resistance or amount of weight you’re lifting in an appropriate manner.  It also enables you to keep notes, in your own language that may help you better connect to the exercises from one workout to the next. 

Your program is designed to cover 10, 15, or 20 training sessions, or 5 weeks at 2, 3, or 4 training sessions per week, respectively.  At the end of your program, we send out a Review Questionnaire that offers clients the opportunity to provide additional feedback which helps us further improve your program. From there, we will continue to monitor your progress to ensure that you don’t stall or plateau.

The most valuable thing about having a plan is you can evaluate and re-evaluate each workout, and consecutive program, to determine why something worked, or maybe why it didn’t.  It has been said that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.  Although that quote had more of a socio-political or global significance, it fits perfectly within this context.  If you’re just “winging it”, how can you identify what worked or refer back to what might have been uncomfortable, or even what might have resulted in a poor outcome? 

At Marino’s Fitness we’re strong believers in a goal-oriented approach to Fitness Training.  Although individual goals may vary widely from one client to the next, the way in which we ensure a higher likelihood of success does not.  Goal-oriented training requires that you have a PLAN, and a program to follow.

The fitness industry is full of generalized training.  Most fitness coaches come up with a single workout they run every client through during the day, week, or month.  Then they “wing it” during the workouts.  They guess weights, push through recommended rest intervals, and just take every repetition to exhaustion so the client feels as if he is getting what they paid for. 

If you’re tired of spinning your wheels at a Gym that doesn’t customize your PLAN to your body and your goals, we’re accepting new clients.  Click HERE to schedule a FREE Strategy Session to see if our Personal Training Studio is a good fit for you.