Home › Blog › Writing programmes
For trainers
Writing every programme from a blank page is the reason coaches cap out at fifteen clients. The answer is not to work faster; it is to write fewer things from scratch.
Work in a fixed order: intake → structure → exercise selection → volume → progression rule. Build three or four base templates and adapt them per client. Write the progression rule into the programme so neither of you has to decide week by week.
Ask only what will actually alter what you write:
| Days | Structure | Frequency per muscle |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Full body | 2× |
| 3 | Full body, or upper / lower / full | 2–3× |
| 4 | Upper / lower | 2× |
| 5 | Upper / lower / push / pull / legs | ~2× |
Pick from the honest number, not the aspirational one. A four-day programme run twice a week is a worse programme than a two-day programme run twice a week, because it hits nothing at a useful frequency. See workout splits.
Two to four exercises per muscle group, each doing a different job: a heavy compound, a different angle, an isolation or stretch movement. For most clients that is six to eight exercises per session, not twelve.
Choose lifts the client can perform well today, not the lifts you would like them to perform in six months. A trap-bar deadlift they can do with a flat back beats a conventional deadlift they cannot.
Aim for 10–20 hard sets per muscle per week, starting near the bottom of that range for anyone new. Starting a beginner at 20 sets removes your ability to add anything later, and it makes them sore enough to skip week two.
This is the step that separates a programme from a workout list. State it explicitly on the sheet:
"3×8–10. When you get 10 on all three sets with clean form, add 2.5 kg next session and go back to 8."
Now the client knows what to do without you standing there, progress happens between sessions, and you are not re-deciding loads every week for thirty people. It is double progression, and it does most of the coaching for you.
Build three or four base programmes — two-day full body, three-day full body, four-day upper/lower, five-day — each with a home-equipment variant. A new client then becomes: pick the template, swap two or three exercises for their injuries and equipment, set starting loads, adjust the volume. Minutes, not an evening.
The programme is not where your value sits. Your value is in selection, progression, technique and accountability — and every hour spent retyping a set-and-rep scheme is an hour not spent on those.
Work in a fixed order: intake, then structure based on days genuinely available, then exercise selection of two to four per muscle group, then weekly volume of 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle, then an explicit progression rule written into the programme itself.
Six to eight per session for most clients, covering two to four exercises per muscle group with each doing a different job. More than that usually means too few sets on each to progress and a session that does not get finished.
Every eight to twelve weeks. Keep the exercises that are still progressing and replace those that have stalled. Changing programmes monthly prevents any lift from accumulating enough exposure to improve.
Yes. Building three or four base templates with equipment variants, then adapting per client, turns programme writing from an evening into minutes without reducing quality. The coaching value is in selection, progression and accountability, not in retyping set and rep schemes.
Templates plus a written progression rule only pay off if the client’s actual sets come back to you, so week four can be diagnosed rather than guessed at.
NutriMacro gives coaches a trainer console for programmes, meal plans, client progress and assessments, with a member app your clients already want to use for food and training. Gyms can run the whole operation — members, billing, classes and online sessions — on the same platform. See gym and trainer software.
Figures quoted are industry benchmarks and typical market rates at the time of writing, intended as orientation rather than as a forecast for any particular business. Nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice.
Read next: Client retention Going online Progressive overload
