What is an exercise program, exactly?

And should you be on one?

In fitness culture, a program is generally a pre-written series of exercises done over an interval of time (days/weeks/months) toward a certain goal. 

There’s tons of weight loss and muscle gain programs out there, and plenty of strength, flexibility, and sport-specific programs on the market as well. There’s programs for moms, firefighters, vegans, and everyone else in between. Some tell you exactly what to do while others are rough outlines.

So should you be on one?

Short answer: not really, but maybe?

Scientifically, yes - but scientific in the way that means systematic or measurable. It helps to have things broken up, organized and mapped out. 

For some personalities, a mathematically sound program with percentages, graphs, waves, and all the related details helps a lot. Others are put off by that level of meticulousness. 

But do you, specifically, need a program?

Hard to say. There's not a one-size-fits-all answer (surprise, surprise). It depends on you and how you work. If the idea of program makes you feel excited and motivated, then yeah, you might be a program person, but if you’re the type that cringes at the idea of a spreadsheet, then it’s probably not for you.

That’s assuming that you’re a normal person who wants to do basic, normal movement stuff to improve your capacity to Do Stuff. The more specific and demanding your goal, the more precise your programming must be.

Olympic athletes mostly operate on rigorous 4 year macrocycles, filled with annual and monthly mesocycles, divided up into even smaller microcycle chunks. Their training is intended to prepare them for a few crucial moments that happen every 4 years. It is the height of specificity. 

Although it might be intoxicating to think about training at that level, it’s untenable for those of us with jobs, families, and other demanding life responsibilities to adhere to a program that strict for that long. For most of us, casual programming that allows us to see a clear path of travel between points A and B is best, with mutable benchmarks off on the horizon guiding our training.

There’s a million different ways to structure workouts and programs, and, unsurprisingly, how you structure them depends highly on - you guessed it - your intention and needs. 

Here’s a couple tips to help simplify the programming process:

1. What’s the minimum amount of work you need to do to get the training effect you desire?
Extra work just causes more fatigue and can actually move you further from the goalpost.

2. How much time do you WANT to spend in the gym?
5 days a week? 3 days? 1 day? You can write a brilliant program, but if it requires you to be in the gym 6 days a week and your schedule only allows for 2, then that program doesn’t work.

3. Change things when you start to burn out.
This doesn’t mean constantly change things all the time. Remember, your body needs repeated exposure to a stimulus to adapt - you have to do the same thing repeatedly to get better at it. 

Some Dan John wisdom applies here: “everything works for 6 weeks, but things rarely work for more than 6 weeks.” 

Give something 4 to 6 weeks before changing it - unless it is causing significant pain/fear/frustration - in that case, find a more appropriate variation of that movement and implement it. Break up your training blocks into 4 to 6 week chunks. At the end, reassess, look at what kind of progress you’ve made, and change as few things as possible.

Yeah, I said change as little as possible. Novelty is cool, but consistency is even better. Squeeze every drop out of every exercise you do: increase load, volume, complexity, play with tempo, static holds - everything. Do it all. 

 4.  Know your intention.
What are you trying to do? This determines not only the exercise selection, reps, and sets, but also the intensity, frequency, and duration of your program. If you have a specific event you’re training for, your program is going to have a deadline. If you’re exercising to feel better and have more options, then the only deadline is, well, death. In that case, your program is as long as you want it to be. That’ll require breaking your exercise program up into chunks using benchmarks, because, really, who wants to try to plan for their entire life all at once?


Numbers, spreadsheets, percentages...all of these things can help, but they're not magic. Exercise is a tool: you don’t start using a drill as a hammer just because you want to see if it can do the same thing as the hammer. Use the right tool for the job. It’s OK to have lots of different kinds of tools, but use them in the right scenario - not just because they’re available. 

So should you use a program? Yeah, probably, but don't be afraid to pick and choose the parts of programming that help you exercise in the way that works for you, not just because the numbers on the page tell you to.