Three principles of building a workout program

    Finding a new workout plan on the internet can be exhausting. Endless searching for the right workout only to find out that one week is free while you have to pay for the rest of the plan. I get it; folks have to make money too, but information should not be hoarded. Even with free resources such as YouTube or Instagram it can be hard to distinguish the overall plan. It's like watching a football game and the plays are randomized and do not flow into an overall system.

    By understanding overall themes of what goes into a plan can be greatly beneficial towards overall fitness goals. The overall theme of any plan starts with Specificity, Overload and Progression. These principles apply to resistance training, aerobic training, agility, whatever….same principles apply.

Specificity

Specificity is essentially working backwards when designing a program. What is the end result? What do I want at the end of the plan? Do I want to get bigger (hypertrophy)? Do I want to get faster at the mile? Do I want to run a marathon? Training has to reflect the end goal. Training in a specific manner will elicit a specific adaptation within the body. S.A.I.D. (Specific application to imposed demands) is a catchy acronym to remember when applying specificity to workouts.

Overload 

Overload is simply adding more intensity to a workout. This can be accomplished in several methods. One of the more simpler ways is to increase the weight in resistance training or run more miles in aerobic training. Another method is to increase the number of times per week to train. For example, if I am training two days a week I would increase that to three days a week. Increasing the number of sets or adding additional exercises are two other ways to manipulate the overload principle. Decreasing rest cycles is another way to change the intensity. All of the above are ways to use the overload principle. To avoid paralysis over analysis, pick one and use that. Changing multiple aspects of overload at once changes the end adaptation. 

Progression

While at first glance progression and overload seem like synonyms. While overload applies to specific changes within an individual workout;progression applies to the overall plan. If the goal is to learn how to power clean. I would first start with a hang clean then progress into a power clean.