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TRAINING PROGRAMMING CASE STUDIES

Now that you’ve learned all the information you need to create individualized exercise
programs, in this week we’ll go over some case studies. Note that without the context of the
email correspondence and without being able to see exactly when what was changed in the
programs, it is important to focus on the general principles, not on trying to replicate these
programs to the letter.

 Case study: Average Joe program design

This is a straightforward case study of the program design process for a typical PT client: an
intermediate level office worker that ‘just wants to look good naked’.

 Case study: no gym, no weights, no problem

Here’s a case study of an intermediate level client that started backpack-traveling the world. He
only occasionally had access to a gym, so Menno created his program almost exclusively with
bodyweight work, a TRX suspender and 2 light elastic training bands. As you can see, with
some creativity in terms of exercise selection and the application of progressive overload, this
can get you very far and he gained an excellent amount of lean body mass during the coaching
period.

 Case study: difficult progression

Here’s the progression track of one of Menno’s clients preparing for his first Physique show.
High stress, mediocre to poor sleep quality, moderate genetic potential, could only train 4x a
week and he sometimes had to train in the morning, so this is a good example of poor
progression with plenty of modifications. Menno highlighted and commented on the most

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important changes in his progression plan so you can see how we dealt with stagnation and
how everything worked.

The notation is [weight] x [reps in first set] x [total number of sets]. This is Autoregulatory
Volume Training where you only log the first set and on the other sets go by feel, focusing on
explosiveness and good technique (but still 1 rep to failure) instead of on achieving X reps.

 Case study: moving a national level powerlifting champion up a weight class

This is the exact progression track Menno used to get one of my Powerlifting clients up a
weight class after he became national powerlifting champion in -83 kg. There was a reason for
the low amount of calf work, but Menno’s doesn’t remember (part of it was limited equipment
availability).

 Case study: Novice vegan

This is a fictional case study created by the Bayesian team to illustrate the full decision making
process of creating a program from scratch.

 Case study: Completely untrained individual

This is another fictional case study created by the Bayesian team to illustrate the full decision
making process of creating a program from scratch.

 Case study: Block periodization and mixing different goals

You can consider this a bonus case study, as Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting aren’t core
contents of the Bayesian PT Course, but it provides some insight in how to deal with the
common problem of clients wanting to achieve various, often interfering goals all at once. As a
coach you have to learn to really dig into the motivation of your clients to see which goals are
most important to them.