One of the more common elements of Personal Training is analyzing what your new clients have been/ are currently doing in their training programming.

Some stuff is good.

Some stuff is not so good.

Surprise, surprise, right?

But when it comes to looking at client programs, there are a few ‘red flags’ that tend to show up especially if the person is coming to me with some specific feedback on what they are feeling (injuries), lack of results (not training with intensity), or boredom (believe it or not, they are jumping from program to program too much and aren’t actually getting better at their workout).

Keeping those feelings in mind, here are 3 things your training program doesn’t need.

1) More than 2 of accessory movements

Your workout should have 4 parts to it. A warm up, a main lift, accessory movements, and conditioning. Without diving in to all 4 parts (I’m sure that will be a blog coming up), I have found that people whiff on the main lift and just dive in to a bunch of accessory movements.

An accessory movement can typically be defined as a single joint movements or movements that typically require a higher amount of volume to receive a training effect. The most iconic accessory movements are bicep curls, shoulder raises, and anything ab-related.

When people come to me saying they are spending too much time in the gym and are not seeing the results they want, the number 1 culprit is the amount of accessory work in their program. Your workout doesn’t need 4 sets of bicep curl, 3 sets of every directional shoulder raise, and then 100 crunches.

You’re going to take up precious time.

You’re going to be training movements that don’t give much stimulus.

Spend that energy on your main lifts.

2) A defined number of sets

This has been a huge paradigm shift for many of my clients. When people feel a plateau in the gym, I often program what I call ‘density sets’. Density sets were first introduced to me by the boys at Strength Faction. These bad boys consist of setting a timer for 15-20 minutes and performing sets of 2-3 exercises with a prescribed number of reps while maintaining a level of intensity for the entire set.

Note- this is not a crossfit go berserker do as many sets as possible. You should be working at a casual pace.

What makes density sets work well is that you are able to accumulate some awesome volume while developing an aerobic base as well. Two big block concepts that will allow you to push your strength gains forward.

Bonus- density sets do an amazing job of allowing you to fit workouts in to a specific time frame too. Win.

3) Exercises that train a full range of motion.

This one may ruffle some feathers but I’m going to take a stab at it.

A ‘full’ range of motion is an archaic term. The more I learn about mobility and flexibility, the more I’ve learned that there are so many genetic predispositions in the human body that what might be ‘normal’ range of motion for one person, isn’t that of another.

Where does this fit in the gym?

If your shoulders kill when you bench press to your chest, lets shorten the range of motion with a block on your chest.

If your knees or ankles hurt during a split squat, lets have you work to a couple foam pads so that your range of motion tightens up.

Or my ultimate favorite…if you get neck pain pulling yourself up in a pull up or chin up, don’t do the ‘up’ part and just do the ‘down’ part. Because a full range of motion refers to all of it, start to finish. Why can’t we fast forward or ‘skip’ part of it? It’s like weight room teleportation. Sick, right?

Training isn’t one size fits all. Spend time finding exercises that fit you, not the other way around, and you’ll find yourself getting the results you want in the time constraints you have to train in.