Is programming for yourself always a good idea?

Recently, I did something I rarely, if ever do…allow someone else to write a workout program for me. There were so many ideas swimming around in my head that settling on just one seemed near impossible. I had fallen victim to what I call over active brain syndrome. Every idea that popped in my head or cool clip from a video found its way into my workouts. Switching up workouts on a week-to-week even day-to-day basis became the norm not the exception. Sound familiar?

Is it hard lesson for strength and conditioning professionals to learn? Maybe. Is it a valuable lesson? Absolutely. As coaches we spend time trying to protect athletes from their own overzealous lifting plans (i.e. Can we increase the weight?). I too had become an overzealous athlete in the weight room. My workouts had become an exercise shooting gallery, with me manning the machine gun. It was just a matter of what target would be hit on any given day. Trying to address every known aspect of training, mobility, stability, and activation was just one of many mistakes. Based on my observations, coach’s fall into three subcategories regarding their personal workout regimen. There are the coaches I call ‘Hardcore’ – who can and do adhere to a strict “never miss” regimen – the ‘super busy’ coaches who can’t workout – and the guys in the middle, ones that fit a workout in where and when they can. I respect all three situations and like most, wish I fell in the “hardcore” category. However, as a college strength and conditioning coach and department head, the realistic demands of training multiple teams and handling administrative work quickly set it. Therefore, I now reside somewhere in the middle.

A fellow coach once said, “The strength coach that programs for himself has a fool for a trainer.” When I first heard this quote, I paid it no mind. In the past, I needed the practice developing programs and more recently, I was just too proud. Echoes of “You’re being lazy!” or “I’m a coach, I write workouts everyday – why not for myself?” raced through my head. The bottom line was; I was getting in my own way. Nearly every workout was either too long or nearly impossible to complete. With this realization and some gained wisdom, I adapted my thought process on self-programming to accommodate my new time demands. I relinquished control in a sense, allowing one of my interns to write a program for me. I offered a list of my past injuries, training goals and current training limitations and requested a new workout design. Since beginning the new program, although not in my comfort zone, things have been going quite well. The early success of my new program has convinced me that self-programming can often be a detriment. I think I can say with honesty – Lesson Learned.