Physical fitness programs are a common place in occupational readiness programs. In some cases, we may be encouraged or motivated to train but wish to receive some sort of exercise guidance. Organizing and planning a workout program for yourself can sometimes be daunting, leading to lack of results or even adherence to training all together. With a few program development tips, you will have more tools in your tool belt to tackling exercise prescription for yourself. For those of you that already stick to a training program, consider these tips as possible reminders, and food-for-thought when selecting your exercises and programming.

Assess Deficiencies

If you can measure it, you can manage it. Learn how to assess various components of fitness (strength, endurance, flexibility, etc), movement patterns, and overall job performance. Find some sort of baseline that can provide you with markers and indicators on your status of fitness and performance. Within this, evaluate areas you do well and areas of consideration for improvement. Do you need to work on strength? Maybe quality of movement? Figure out where you fall short and use this as a means of prioritizing training focus, in addition to still working and empowering the areas you are strong in. Do not be afraid to take one step back to correct an imbalance, in efforts to take 3 leaps forwards. But to do so, you need to know where the starting line is. From there, we know which direction we face.

Establish Movement Patterns

Before starting a specific physical fitness program, you need to make sure that you are performing multiple movements patterns that would carry over to real-world applications. For instance, a great check list to have could consist of something like lunges, hinges, rows/pulls, pressing/push, squats, rotations, carries, and drags. These are very traditional and common practice movements within the tactical population. Analyze what movements you should integrate into your training and use these as a checklist for exercise selection when writing out your training program.

Write A Plan

Writing down and scheduling your exercise training program can be an amazing way to assist with a) knowing which variable or components in the work out you eventually adjust, b) having a plan going into a training session, c) understanding what resources you would need prior to beginning a workout, and d) managing time based on restraints and lifestyle demands and/or responsibilities.

Introduction Principles of Overload, Progression, and Specificity

Progressive Overload – To continue to grow or develop (to change), we need to receive some sort of stimulus or stress. This “stimulus” comes from our training, introducing a form of organized physical stress. This stress, in turn, creates some sort of reaction or adaptation (a.k.a. results). To initiate and continue to see results, we must constantly manipulate our training in a strategic manner. Find one or two components, for instance weight or duration of work or repetitions, and gradually increase these from week to week. Try to limit the number of components you change, as even simply changing one from session to session or week to week will still facilitate adaptations.

Specificity – When strategizing your training plan, consider the adaptation you would like to have. If you are training for strength, your program will reflect strength training programming. This is the principle of specificity. Now, depending on the occupational task, you may need to display components such as endurance or muscular power. Training programs should not solely focus on one individual component, at least in the long run. You can have varying days that alternate between endurance and strength, or wave through training phases that prioritize one component versus another, but only for a short period of time. Do not get into the habit of only specializing in one attribute. Be versatile.  

Adjust Recovery

Just like manipulating the amount of work or stress you introduce into your training, you can also manipulate the amount of recovery time introduced throughout a physical fitness program. Variations of recovery manipulation could be a) between working sets as rest time, b) duration of rest between individual exercises, c) transitioning from individual exercises to circuits, supersets, compound sets, or variations, d) as well as overall recovery time between training sessions. How ever you decide to manipulate the recovery, consider the total muscle groups utilized for those exercises and overall accumulated stress you acquire throughout the day, at work, and at home.

Integrate Variation

Movement – Sometimes we get stuck in the same way of doing things. Yes, the traditional big 3, big 4, big 5, 6, or 7 work. Bench, squat, deadlift. Some people include pull ups and overhead press as additional markers of strength. It seems like depending on who you talk to, they are either extremely for or against these movements. For me, my recommendation is not the lift itself but the category of movement it falls under. For instance, the bench press is a horizontal press. While the back squat is a squatting pattern, deadlift a hinge, pull up a vertical row, and overhead press a vertical press. Try to find and incorporate other lifts that also fall within these and other categories of movement. There are plenty of exercises that can still accomplish the movement category without being that specific lift. Variations may also introduce new challenges, such as mobility, stability, or separation of limbs through unilateral movement.

Embrace Equipment Access (Be creative when needed)

In many cases, we must embrace the equipment that we have available to us. Initially, we can get in amazing work outs with calisthenics (body weight). Even then, adding in resistance bands would work wonders. In many cases, personnel may not have access to free weights at their department, specific station, or even at home. Embrace various alternatives, such as out-of-commission hose line formed in bundles, weighted vests, book/item loaded backpacks, or other forms of weight additions. In contrast to this, we now need to see the other side of the spectrum. Just because you DO have barbells, benches, racks, and cables, does not mean that you should only limit yourself there. Start incorporating a variety of equipment such as kettlebells, bands, sandbags, maces, and much more. This could provide new stimuli for adaptations as well as a refreshed and exciting mentality to training.

Move in All Planes

Moving in all planes of motion allows for decreasing the risk of muscular and movement imbalances. Make sure that you incorporate forwards/backwards movements, lateral or side to side movements, and rotational or twisting movements. You could even incorporate these in a fashion that you are adding some sort of tension or force pulling you towards that direction, but you fight to resist it. For example – a rotational movement could consist of performing a woodchopper or power rotation with a medicine ball, while an anti-rotational movement may be using a resistance band anchored perpendicular to your position and hold it with both hands in front of your chest. In the anti-rotation, by fighting against the bands resistance to force your torso to twist, you are engaging various core and stability muscles.

Balance Unilateral and Bilateral

Throughout long-term training, we tend to develop asymmetries or differences between right and left sides. When using traditional barbell exercises, it is common to focus on movements where both hands or both feet are locked in a set position and both limbs assist in the transfer of the same load (example, during a bench press, although on opposite sides, both arms are exerting force on the same barbell). Try including movements where limbs move different sets of loads, for instance, incorporating cables, band work, or kettlebells and dumbbells. With lower body, this may be seen as the legs performing near identical movements. For instance, in a traditional back squat or deadlift, both legs are moving the same load while also demanded to perform the same biomechanical movement pattern. In addition, consider including single leg or split stance movements.

Reassess Periodically

As you continue to train throughout your career, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of your training program. Is the program working? What are you improving in, where do you fall short, and what could you manipulate to receive the results you want? All great questions you could begin to ask. With those questions, the answer would revolve around periodic testing. This could be quarterly or annual (at minimum) to measure the components that you were striving to enhance. With fitness and performance testing, I would encourage a comprehensive approach, assessing all components of fitness and addressing areas you may need to improve for occupational readiness.