Skeletons and Blocks: How to Build Programmes on the Spot

Every time you write a programme, you don't need to go through every step from scratch — especially the research, because a lot of it repeats. But building a name for yourself needs consistency, and that's hard when everything is bespoke. We don't want to slide back to the 1990s leisure-centre programme drawer, where the only difference between plans was: are you a man or a woman? (Men got biceps and calves; women got adductors and abductors; everyone did 12 reps, 2 sets.)

At FASTER we build programmes with two tools instead: skeletons and blocks.

Skeletons — the shape of a session

A skeleton is a rough outline of how a programme might play out. If you were about to sit your Level 2 Gym Instructor exam, there's a skeleton most people would recognise:

• Cardio
• Dynamic stretch
• Cardio
• Legs
• Legs
• Back
• Chest
• Shoulders
• Functional
• Arms
• Arms
• Core / bodyweight
• Cardio
• Static stretch

Each bullet is a slot that tells you roughly what to drop in to make it a workout. The same skeleton can be laid out in countless ways, for many different clients, without ever being duplicated.

Skeletons can come from anywhere. On our courses we show how to deconstruct a workout to find the skeleton behind it and the blocks it uses — then replicate or refine them for your own programmes.

Blocks — what goes inside

A block is a mixture of exercise, intensity, system and rest time. Blocks are how I build programmes on the spot, and how I tap into the programming ideas I've picked up over years in the industry.

My favourite block is a version of a giant set — four consecutive exercises — but arranged as two strength moves followed by two similar power moves. I took the idea from a band-and-ball chest workout taught by Juan Carlos Santana at the Institute of Human Performance in Florida.

• Strength — 20 reps
• Strength — 20 reps
• Power — 20 reps
• Power — 20 reps

A legs example, done as three sets with each set a different plane of motion (20 reps of each — this one's just for me, so it isn't training for anything in particular):

• Squat
• Lunge
• Alternate split-squat jump (lunge jumps)
• Squat jumps

Mixing blocks

In the real world I rarely use just one block. My skeleton might read lower body, upper-body push, upper-body pull, upper-body lift, upper-body pull-down — but I'd mix blocks across it, and although the slots are named "upper" and "lower", most of the exercises I actually pick are whole-body.

That's the point of the system: once you think in skeletons and blocks, you can write a fresh, individual programme in minutes — and never hand two clients the same plan again.