Jason Jackson ACA

I design my training programmes by reviewing my client’s progress photos and deciding which seven to eight muscle subdivisions to focus on in the upcoming training block. 

I select two exercises that stimulate the target muscle fibres directly. Ideally, I choose exercises that train the muscle from both a lengthened and shortened position, such as an RDL and a back extension.

I then divide my exercise list into A and B training sessions.

I schedule full-body A, B, A and B, A, B sessions on alternate weeks. This way, clients train each of the prioritised muscle subdivisions three times every week. That’s the important bit.

The dose-response of hypertrophy to workout volume is non-linear. In other words, subsequent sets in a session result in diminishing returns (Schoenfeld, 2016).

To achieve the best training outcomes, we need to design programmes in weekly cycles rather than fragmented sessions.

Once you understand the principles of programming, your sessions write themselves.

DM or comment the word “COACHING” to learn how.

Do your clients respect your knowledge?

Are they willing to adjust their beliefs when you present counter-evidence that challenges their misconceptions? 

Part of your responsibility as a coach is to educate your clients. We need to tell them not just what to do but why they need to do it. 

During a check-in last week, I discussed whether exercise selection should be changed every month.

This is what clients need to realise:

Improved coordination accounts for most of the initial increases in loads of new exercises in a programme. Hypertrophy and strength adaptations don’t come into play until around the 4 week mark (Moritani and DeVries, 1979; 1980). 

The body needs time and practice to learn how to do new exercises before muscular adaptations can occur. 

So, if you switch exercises every 4 weeks, clients won’t have a chance to build muscle or get legitimately stronger.

On paper, exercises should be in a programme for at least 8 weeks. However, in practice, you also need to contend with client motivation. And some clients crave more variety than others. 

In practice, I keep exercises in a programme for 8 weeks. But I change the A and C series one month and then the B and D series the following month, so there is always some novelty in a programme.

I still see trainers programming three sets of 10 of a seemingly random selection of exercises. Your coaching might be on point, but do you know how to write standout programmes?

As an online coach, you just have to know how to write more effective and time-efficient programmes than your gym-floor counterparts to offer a better quality product.

Here’s an example:

We know that more volume produces more hypertrophy stimulus, right? However, each subsequent set results in diminishing returns and is less effective than its predecessor. Incredibly, it would take six sets to match the hypertrophic effect as the first (Krieger, 2010).

A poor return on your training time. This inefficiency is why I never write more than two working sets in my clients’ programmes.

The industry’s endless debate on the best exercise for X overshadows program structure. Your fragmented programming may be leaving gains on the table. Instead, think about the synergy of your training across the entire week, not just each session in isolation.

You need to stop getting your information from disjointed social media soundbites. If you want a deeper understanding of the optimal training frequency, volume, recovery, reps and rest protocols, DM me the word “COACHING”, and I’ll unpack it down for you.

Do you want to have more impactful conversations with your clients? Perhaps you need the tools to gauge how they prefer to be coached.

Chelladurai and Saleh developed the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) to cover the critical aspects of effective leadership without the overwhelming complexity that might obscure its practical impact. Their design evaluates athletes’ satisfaction, performance, and dropout behaviour by breaking down the behavioural aspects of coaching relationships.

The LSS measures six dimensions of sports leadership behaviours: autocratic, democratic, positive feedback, situational considerations, social support, and training and instruction.

As part of my doctorate, I adapted the Revised Leadership Scale for Sport to assess clients’ preferences for leadership behaviours in a personal training context.

Producing a model the industry can use to systemically rank clients’ desired coaching behaviours helps structure my mentoring to prioritise the development of highlighted leadership behaviours in the trainers I work with.

had to articulate my reflections on my PhD journey for the latest module. I wrote that my motivation to do a PhD was to become an expert practitioner.

I’ve held the titles of master, elite, elite +, and even icon trainer, but these are not standardised ranks. So, what makes you an expert?

Based on the literature, I would define an expert as “an individual with deep, specialised knowledge, highly developed pattern recognition abilities, and situational, context-sensitive judgement.”

As I was writing this, the finely-tuned pattern recognition made me think of a quote from one of my favourite films:

“When you can’t see the angles no more, you’re in trouble.”

The “angles” the character refers to are the situational dynamics - the ability to understand the situation, see the potential risks and opportunities, and act accordingly. 

When you can no longer see the angles, it means you have lost your ability to anticipate and react effectively and are in a precarious position.

It might be helpful to familiarise yourself with some basic economic terms relevant to your personal training business, such as value-based strategy, premiumisation, and opportunity costs. 

Economic literacy isn’t part of the PT curriculum, so we aren’t taught that we have agency in shaping our business model.

Ask yourself two questions:

How good do you want to be?
And how quickly do you want to get there?

If you’re just happy nicking a living, there is no need to read on. But if you want to provide more value to your clients and charge accordingly, you need to upskill.

Just turning up and delivering sessions isn’t enough to become an expert. Think about it: improvements in driving skills don’t correlate with time spent behind the wheel - I know I’ve picked up a few bad habits along the way.

Ericsson’s (1993) seminal work on expertise clearly distinguishes between deliberate and naïve practice. The criteria for deliberate practice involves goal-focused tasks with the specific purpose of improving performance. Notably, a mentor is needed to provide immediate, structured, and actionable feedback through an “individualised diagnosis of errors”.

Training needs to be sequential, with the mentor deciding when you’re ready for more complex and challenging tasks tailored to your current abilities.

In contrast, naïve practice is experience-based learning as a by-product of simply doing your job, with any skill acquisition passive and incidental (Ericsson and Harwell, 2019) - this is where most trainers are.

Without structured feedback, improvements will be minimal - even amongst highly motivated individuals. Becoming an expert requires more than just following a few social media accounts. Experts need access to mentors.

You need someone in your corner who’s walked the talk.

Is your ass looking a bit flat?

Maybe it’s not your exercise selection or even ex*****on that’s letting you down - but your programming.

Fifty-two percent of personal trainers rely on low-quality sources of information, such as social media, when writing training programmes (Bennie, 2017).

Are you one of them?

Let’s take a look at an example. Which would you schedule first in a training session, the RDL or hip thrust?

I would always programme the hip thrusts last.

Here’s why:

According to multiple EMG studies, hip thrusts need less than 40% of the equivalent load of an RDL for the same stimulus (Delgado, 2019; García, 2020).

So, compared to the RDL, similar levels of glute activation can be achieved with much lower loads - critical when you’re fatiguing towards the end of sessions.

Makes sense now, right?

Of course, exercise selection is important. However, exercise order is almost as impactful for more experienced trainees. Put it this way: there’s always a more effective way of training.

DM me the word “COACHING” if you’d like to know the best way to train your favourite muscle group.

Fitness Managers won’t want me to tell you this, but you should cap your sessions to create time to spend ON your business, not just in it.

Are you feeling burned out from delivering endless mediocre results? Is your self-worth tied to how many sessions you churn out each week?

Always, always prioritise quality over quantity. Put your clients before company stakeholders.

Focus on delivering exceptional results and price your product according to its relative market value. Clients will happily pay more if the product is positioned at a higher standard than the norm.

Invest the recouped time into your education. Then, the value of your product goes up further. See where I’m going with this? This business phenomenon is described as the “flywheel effect” (Collins, 2019).

I’ve spoken to trainers at my seminars who’ve told me their club sets a minimum rate for sessions. A minimum. That’s insane. It’s like a race to the bottom. You should aim to charge the most in your club.

For the last seven years (from 2018 to 2024), I did precisely that. I charged more than ANY other trainer at Virgin Active and then Third Space, before or since.

Setting fees that reflected the quality of my service allowed me to limit the sessions I delivered each week, giving me the bandwidth to study for my MSc and now a PhD (while raising a family).

DM me the word “COACHING”, and I’ll show you how to level up your business.

Allow me to introduce my online client, Juanita.

She’s not a trainer or an athlete, but a full-time working mum that wanted to get in the best shape of her life for her 40th birthday.

I got Juanita in this condition by training three times per week and dieting on 1,700 calories a day.

If you’d like to see how I structured Juanita’s training DM me “Online Coaching” and I’ll show you how it’s done.

With over 10,000 trainers in the capital (Statista, 2023), I’m thrilled to be recognised as one of the 30 Best Personal Trainers in London by .

Many thanks to for the acknowledgement