Hello, welcome back to the Warmup. I'm Kyle Wood. This episode is for you. If you deal with one of two problems, which the first one is whenever you sit down to plan a workout, your brain just, you've got the blank page and you're trying to come up with an idea, trying to come up with something to do for tomorrow, and you just can't quite get there. Or it's for you if you maybe have a set formula you use for your workouts.
But you feel like either you are getting bored as a trainer running this, this same solar workout all the time, or you feel like your clients are getting bored, maybe your nu numbers are dwindling, maybe having trouble growing your classes, getting some traction. This is for you. So this topic actually came in from, a listener of the show. She emailed me in and she said, Hey, could you go through something like. A six, how you'd plan out like a six or 12 week boot camp.
Um, and I do want to do that and I'm gonna, that's what we're gonna talk about today. But there is one other thing I wanted to share, and that is that, uh, I'm really tired and don't worry, this is gonna get back to, to the point at hand. Uh, I'm tired, I just did a workout. My hair's, if you're watching the video, my hair is in full humidity, curly mode. Um, I am, I'm sweaty. I haven't had a shower yet, um, but I wanted to still do to this podcast.
The reason being this is all happening is because my big one's sick and she, um, you know, she's keeping us up all night coughing. Uh, and the poor thing, I mean, it's bad for her, but you know, as parents with young kids, it's also really challenging. I find it really challenging. And the, the reason I bring that up is that, she's home today. I'd normally record this podcast with no one at the house.
I'm, I'm quickly getting it in while my wife takes my daughter to the, um, to the doctor, and it, it, how often do you find as a trainer that you are looking for these little moments in the day? Where everything's kind of, especially if you've got a young family, everything's kind of exploding and not going to plan each day. And so you're just trying to find these little moments you can scrounge to plan your sessions for your clients.
Now, maybe that's worked for you up until this point, but it's getting to a point where doing this multiple times a week, uh, it means you are always on, you're always switched on. You're always thinking about a workout. You've always got that hanging over your head that, oh, I need to plan something. Um, and yeah, and like I said at the start, maybe that side impact your classes. Maybe it's not. Maybe you're listening to this and you're like, no, Carl, this is not an issue for me.
Well, you might enjoy just listening along to this, but, uh, I know for me, planning sessions constantly throughout the week, um, just took up so much time and I can't imagine doing it now that I have a young family, like finding that. Well, I see, see it in my wife when she's planning sessions and. She keeps saying she needs to do what I rec, I'm gonna talk about on this podcast because she's often planning her sessions the day before. Um, she needs to do 'em. So, uh, yeah.
And then that means, you know, she's gotta disappear. She's gotta, you know, we might be having like family time or something like that and she's gotta duck out to do that. And that's, that is what it is. But it doesn't have to be, um, that way. Now it's gonna sound like I'm recording this podcast with my wife, which I'm not. I love you and you do an amazing job. Uh, but let's get into what I'm gonna talk about today.
So we're gonna look at not just planning an individual workout, but today I want to zoom out and how do we think about cons like structuring six weeks or 12 weeks, um, of bootcamp classes. Um, yeah, we've gone over that. You want to avoid trying to go week to week, uh, because, or even like day to day, um, we've gone over that, your clients and you and or you can get bored if you're doing the same thing all the time.
Um, and the other thing we should talk about is that when we are doing stuff week to week, it can be more difficult to. Gauge clients', um, ability, and by that I mean some clients by, by planning out in in advance, this is gonna make sense. By planning out in advance, we can make sure that clients of different ability levels are progressing over. To six weeks or 12 weeks or however many it is. But when we're just doing it week to week, it becomes difficult to track that, doesn't it?
Because it's like, oh, what did we do last week? Or what did we do three weeks before when we zoom out, we can start plotting, you know, we can see the whole map. We can start seeing where we are going. So, um, that's what I wanted to talk about today. I am just checking my notes to make sure I haven't missed anything important.
Okay. The other thing we can do is that not just in challenging clients, is that we can make sure that when we've got a big group of people, everyone's goals, there's some common goals, but there's some different goals, so we can make sure that different people's goals are being met. Throughout that six weeks, uh, depending on what style of workouts they like and things like that. Like some clients had loved the team building workouts. They live for 'em. Other clients loath them.
They love the workouts where it was more of an individual challenge. So by looking over the six weeks, I could make sure, oh, I've got some of those workouts that the clients who love just their own thing and, and doing their own thing and not talking to anyone else. They've got some great sessions in there that they're gonna love. Then the clients who love the team building stuff, they've got some great sessions in there that they're gonna love.
And that way at the end of the six weeks, everyone's like, oh, there was, you know, they've got some good memories of workouts that they really loved, and that is what is gonna keep people coming back long term. So when we talk about workouts, we are thinking about how are we getting our clients exercising? But actually this ties into how well our clients, our classes will grow. How much people will talk about, like the word of mouth will spread. Our retention.
You know, if people aren't enjoying the workouts, they're not, they're not gonna come back as much as they might like you, they're probably not gonna come back. So let's start thinking about, um, the first thing that I do when I look at six weeks. So we're gonna, I know I said six or 12 weeks. We're gonna go with six weeks. Six weeks is a good amount of time. First thing I'm gonna do is think about a theme or a goal for that period of time.
Because otherwise we are just kind of doing random stuff all the time. And while most of our clients, their goal is just to generally get healthier and fitter and, um, kind of stave off some of, depending on how old they are, stave off some of the aspects of aging. Uh, we still, for us, as a tool to help us plan and program classes easier, we wanna have a goal for our clients.
And it can, it's, you know, it's seen as well that like if you really want to improve your cardio fitness, for example, you need to be doing a certain amount of cardio work each week to improve that same thing. If you wanna improve your strength, you need to be doing a certain amount of strength work. And when we kind of try and target everything at once, we end up not really moving the needle in any direction. So it's much better to be like this six weeks we're gonna focus on cardio.
Yes, includes, and of course strength training is still a part of like healthy joints and everything you need for, um, doing the training you need for cardio, but you're gonna be skewing things more towards that. So it's gonna affect how many times you do a certain style of workout over the six weeks by having the theme. Then the other thing we want to think about is each week we want to have a focus for that week, so of our overall goal.
So if it's cardio that we're gonna do, maybe our clients actually need to learn how to run properly. So maybe in the first week we're doing workouts that include lots of different, like how to run drills. And you can look up, go on YouTube, you can find like tons of, um, tutorials and stuff like that with little drills. Have a look at like what sporting teams do and things like that. Uh, but that might be the goal. So the goal of that week isn't you're gonna kick your client's butt.
It's actually working on the Yeah. The technique of running and find ways to still make that fun. You know, you use games and things like that so the workouts don't become too, you know, your clients haven't signed up for a run clinic, so, um, you still need to make sure that they feel like they're getting something outta the workout. And then the second week you might start off with doing.
Some, uh, some like fairly moderate or low intensity type cardio works, and maybe that, that second week is still more strength training, but there's like some cardio stuff built into like finishes, warmups games. You sort of sneakily, sneakily put it in between the different tris. Uh, I always love sneaking stuff in. It's the, that thing of clients, um, you know, you give them what they want. Um, and then you sprinkle in what they actually need. 'cause we know what they need.
Um, then yeah, then you'll, you might work that way up, work your way up. And the next, the third week would be more moderate intensity. Cardio fourth week is a higher intensity cardio, maybe like peaking with like the fifth week. 'cause you're doing a running thing. You might be like, Hey, on Friday's workout we're actually gonna meet here and we're gonna do, we're gonna do a trail run or something like that. And make it a bit of fun. Make it something different, not just.
Going to the studio again, not just going to the same park again. How can you, because you've now picked a theme, you can think about how are we gonna peak in this theme? And then week six might just be fun stuff, just fun workouts, just, you know, bootcamp, monopoly, all of that kind of stuff. Just fun things to wrap up the six weeks. And they'll be able to see from the work they've done on the, the five weeks before, they'll be able to see.
Wow, I'm, I'm so much fitter at these, at these games and things like, I'm not getting us out of breath. I'm finding I have more capacity to keep going. So we don't need to do fitness testing as much. They, although you can, but you might choose not to do that and instead show them, Hey, you're actually fitter because you came to all these workouts and you showed up and you did the stuff.
So this is something, this is something you can think about and this is something you can do and now cast your mind back to before. When you were just planning your workouts the night before, how on earth can you, without having this map, you're never going to be able to create this sort of, excuse me, hit on the microphone. You're never gonna be able to create this, this arc. You know, a quest. A movie storyline. Like a screenplay.
Like you're never gonna be able to create that experience for your clients with your bootcamp. And that is what makes you stand out. And that is what I see really successful trainers doing. And that is what I see a lot of new trainers missing. Um, because a lot of the big group fitness classes out there don't offer this, or because everything's programmed at head office, you are not seeing that someone's actually doing this stuff behind, in, behind the scenes.
And that's the thing you don't need to share with your clients, Hey, we're doing a six. Week thing on cardio clients who hate cardio, they're gonna be like, oh, you might not even tell them, you just start it. You just start doing the six week thing. Uh, and then, and then see how they go. Maybe you're like halfway through, you're like, actually, you know, we've been focusing on this and you guys have already improved so much.
So yeah, again, it's that thing of like, give your clients what they want. I wanna work out, but you are gonna actually throw in there what they need. Uh, and the great thing about this is if you finish this cardio round of six weeks. Your clients are now prime for like some, a different form of training, like a strength training or like hip training or, so they're ready to go for that next, uh, six weeks to do something d completely different.
Um, and in terms of workouts, uh, I will touch on this. So say you run your bootcamps Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you might be like, okay, Kyle, well do I just, do we, do I plan a Monday workout? A Wednesday workout and a Friday workout, and then we just make it a bit harder each week. I would say for a bootcamp, don't do that if you're doing small group training, a hundred percent because you can actually gauge where everyone is each week.
Um, you can have them increase their weights and things like that, whereas in a bootcamp, you're probably not using as many weights, so it makes it harder to do that sort of incremental increase. So what you want to do is look at what you're doing over the week and make that slightly more intense each week instead of doing the same workout. And this is the difference between structured variety and chaotic variety. What you're doing now, planning workouts every week.
It's just a random one every week. That's chaotic variety. There's no. There's nowhere in there for clients really to get fitter. You're just giving them a hard workout every week. You're just smashing them. I just smash 'em every week. But how many of your clients are at the same level they were a year ago? Um, by doing this more structured variety, you can still give them that variety.
'cause people need, like most of the population, they don't want to turn up and do the same workout every single week. This is why CrossFit exploded. A part of it is. Like lifting weights and things like that, which is also interesting 'cause that's something that clients didn't want to do up until that point in group fitness. They didn't want to lift weights. And then suddenly you've go to class where people are lifting weights and it's popular.
But the other thing with CrossFit is that the workouts are different every single time. So people will come six times a week because they know they're doing something different every week. And the next week is gonna be different and the next week is gonna be different. But behind that, at a good CrossFit gym, there's gonna be programming. They, they're actually thinking about. Hitting certain lifts, hitting certain rep ranges. So there is structure behind the scenes.
So that's what I wanna encourage you to start doing. And it might feel uncomfortable because maybe in your own workouts you don't really have any structure, maybe in your own workouts, you just rock up and you just do whatever you feel like that week. Uh, and this idea of, of creating like a program for your clients feels, uh, unusual. But I'd like to encourage you to, to give it a go.
Uh, because it will make a different, it'll make you look way more professional because your clients will notice that they're getting fitter and they're constantly getting fitter because you're working on different areas. There's some aspect of their fitness that they're always improving. Uh, so yeah, that's a long way. You can see I'm very passionate about this. This has been like my core message for the last 10 years on bootcamp ideas.
And I can't believe, um, I have done podcasts on the past, but I can't believe I'm haven't done one. To kick things off. Uh, so thank you, um, to, oh, did I write down her name? I was gonna say thank you to the, I didn't write down her name, but thank you to the listener who, who sent in this request. So that's how I would look at my six week. Then obviously there's our actual workouts, there's how do we structure actual workouts, and there's a whole other thing. Around that as well.
Um, I recommend, just as an overview, I recommend doing a week of workouts at a time because then when your child is sick and keeping you up coughing all night and you just want to be a hundred percent there for them, you can be because you've already planned your workouts for this week. So this is the event. If I had recorded a month's worth of podcasts in one day, I could do the same today, but as it is, it's gonna work out. But I'm leaving things up to a bit more up to chance.
So by planning a week of workout that way as well, like you can swap things around. You might be like, oh, the group's really sore today and had this workout planned. I don't think it's gonna be, you know, it's maybe a bit intense if everyone's really stiff and sore. So actually, I'm gonna swap things around, do the recovery workout I had planned for Friday, and we'll do the hard workout again later. It just gives you so much more flexibility. It does take more organ being more organized.
Uh, but again, to me this is about being professional. If you want to make a living in this industry, um, you can't, you, you, if you, so many of us learn and in this industry influence now what we're seeing on, uh, social media and especially on Instagram and TikTok, and we're seeing trainers sharing about themselves and things like that. Um, which is fantastic, but we need to make sure we back that up with professionalism on the back end.
So make sure you're still being a professional trainer and you're still, that means planning ahead, thinking ahead, doing things like this. So to wrap things up, if you nail all this down, like I said, you'll get, clients will get results, so they'll stick around longer. Um, you'll save time and you'll be less stressed because you'll have your sessions planned out, uh, by picking your theme as well.
I didn't really talk about it today, but that helps you brainstorm ideas, it helps you come up, helps you pick which workouts to do. And it's not about just smashing your clients every session. There's actually like, you can still train your clients hard, but there's actually a method to the madness. And so I hope I've convinced you of why you should start looking at your, your sessions in a bigger, a bigger period of time than a week or even session to session. Start thinking about it.
Zoom it out, look at it, you know, six weeks. 12 weeks. Uh, it's also encourages members to come more than once a week, which is something, uh, that's for another, a discussion for another day. Uh, but you will see doing this, you'll see improved retention because it's like, oh, he does something different every time. But you'll also see clients getting results. So they're like, but I still get any results. I'm the fittest.
I had multiple clients say I'm the fittest I've ever been in my life, and. You sneakily do repeat workouts. Other than that, the workouts are changing quite regularly. The other big thing that you'll get out of planning ahead is less stress, won't be thinking about workouts all the time. You won't be waiting till people leave the house or you, you know, you're going to watch your kid do their swimming lessons or something. You're, you're trying to quickly plan a workout out.
You can actually get yourself set up, get it organized, do it once for the week and be done, and then you can relax. You can, you know, you're a trainer, you work hard. I know how hard trainers work. I used to be a trainer and, um, I think, you know, we all get to a point where we don't wanna work as hard anymore. We want to start working smarter, and this is part of it.
And so if this is, if this is interested you, then you might be interested to know that I'm running a two hour master class called How to Plan Your Bootcamp Workouts Fast. Without sacrificing the quality. So it's not about just scrambling something together, it's actually about creating better workouts and saving time in it. I'll walk you through my proven bootcamp system. So what we did today, but I'll go into a lot more detail.
I'll go into how to keep clients engaged, how to plan an individual workout, how to sort of, what that system looks like, that you can follow. Whether you decide to do things monthly or by the school term, but to give you an actual system, you can just follow and do each each cycle of your bootcamp. I'll also give you my planning templates, so you can just use the templates, just fill in the blanks pretty much.
And I'll give you some example workouts as well so that you can see, oh, I understand what Kyle's talking about. It's always difficult doing things like this. Like I used to run this workshop as a live face-to-face workshop, but I can't be all around the world everywhere at once, so it's always difficult.
So I'm gonna, I'm doing my best in this masterclass to give you a taste of what your workouts can be, and then give you a really foolproof system to planning your workouts just so that you are less stressed. It can save time and this just becomes a part of your routine around your business. And yeah, you can show up and be more professional. So I'd love for you to join me. It's on the 27th of March, so if you're listening after, then it's, it's gone.
Uh, but there might be a recording available or there might be another date available, but I don't know whether I'm gonna run this again at this stage. So, at the moment, 27th of March. It's two hours. So we're really diving in deep. It's just not just like a, oh hey, do this and do that. It's, we're really getting into it. Um, and yeah, you can find the link in the show notes or you can go to bootcampideas.com/workshop.
So bootcamp ideas.com, my website slash workshop, and that will automatically take you to the page to enroll. Yeah, I'd love to see you there. I hope uh, you guys have a great week and I'll chat to you then. Bye.