How to Create a Training Program for Your Athletes

Most training programs fail for a boring reason: they were written for an ideal athlete who trains five times a week, sleeps eight hours and never gets bored. The real athlete has a job, a sore shoulder and a gym that only has one squat rack. Here is a method that starts from the real one.

1. Start with an assessment

Before writing a single set, answer three questions:

Where is the athlete now? Test the lifts or movements that matter for their sport, and note technique limitations, not just numbers.
Where do they want to go? “Add 10 kg to the squat by December” is a goal. “Get stronger” is a wish.
What can they realistically do? Days available per week, equipment, injury history, sleep, stress.

Write the answers down. You’ll reuse them at every program review, and in six months they’ll settle arguments about whether the program is working.

2. Choose a structure

Most programs that work fit one of a few templates:

Linear progression: add a little weight or volume each week. Boring, and exactly what beginners need.
Undulating periodization: vary intensity and volume within the week (heavy, light and medium days). A good fit for intermediates.
Block periodization: 3 to 6 week blocks dedicated to one quality at a time, for advanced athletes with a competition date.

Pick the simplest structure that matches the athlete’s level. An intermediate on a fancy block plan progresses no faster than on a simple weekly wave; they just have more to keep track of.

3. Program the sessions

For each session, define the main work (one to three exercises tied directly to the goal, with sets, reps, load or RPE, and rest times), then the accessory work targeting the weak points you found in the assessment.

Then watch the total weekly dose per muscle group or movement pattern. Most stalls I’ve seen come from ramping up volume too fast, not from doing too little.

Be explicit about rest times and tempo when they matter. “3×8 squats” means ten different things to ten different athletes.

4. Deliver it in a usable format

A program buried in a spreadsheet tab or a PDF gets skipped. The athlete should be able to open today’s session on their phone, in the gym, in two taps, and log what they actually did. If logging takes effort, they’ll stop after two weeks and you’ll be coaching blind.

5. Track and adjust

The program you write on day one is a hypothesis. To validate it you need the numbers (weights and reps completed, every session) and the signals: perceived effort, pain, sleep, motivation. A short follow-up form after each session covers the signals.

Review every three or four weeks. If progress stalls two weeks in a row, change the dose or the exercise selection. Change one thing, not everything.

About the spreadsheet

You can run all of this in a spreadsheet, and plenty of coaches do. It holds up fine until about five athletes. After that, the copy-pasting, the version confusion and the “did you fill in your results?” messages start eating your evenings.

That annoyance is why Fitimyze exists. You write the program once, each athlete gets a private link (no account on their side), and results and follow-up answers land on your dashboard as they train.