Individual Design: What is it and how can it benefit you.
This might be the first time you heard of individual design. Let's start by explaining what it is. Individual design is programming tailored directly to you. It turns weaknesses to strengths and creates a more balances body for movement. Nadine and I do a lot of this every time you are in class. It's not just using dumbbells instead of barbells, it's adapting movements, reps, and sets to fit exactly what you need.
Let's make a simple workout and then create a couple individual designs from it. For example, here is one baseline workout.
12 minutes
5 Barbell Shoulder Press
10 Deadlifts
400m run
Now this workout is great for everyone to do. You can adjust the weight up and down and everyone finishes at 12 minutes. This is what we consider "scaling or modifying" the workout.
Let's give a scenario to help you understand how ID (individual design) works. You come into class and the barbell shoulder press hurts the front side of your shoulder. You have have low back issues and deadlifts are painful when you take the bar to the ground. Finally you heel strike when you run which is only causing high impact to the knees and sooner or later it's going to become a nagging chronic pain.
Your ID might look something like this:
12 minutes
5/each Single Arm Dumbbell Eccentric Press with a :03 hold at 90 degrees
15 Rack Pull Deadlifts starting from just below the knee
200m Backwards Run
Now let's break down the movements to help you understand why you would do this adapted workout rather than the baseline. The single arm dumbbell presses with a hold at 90 degrees focuses on a slow and controlled movement building the joint and tendon health. It allows you to identify exactly where and when the shoulder pain kicks in. You can still train the movement and get the benefits of moving toward a barbell press without creating more pain or compensation.
The rack pull deadlifts allow you to focus on making the deadlift a core movement instead of a low back movement. The height is adjusted so you can kick in the core, glutes, and hamstrings without rounding your spine to get the bar to touch the floor.
Finally, the backwards run forces you to stay on the forefoot and build the strength of your calves and arches. Remember, every time we run and put a foot to the ground we are loading 200-300% of our bodyweight. Many people heel strike because of weaknesses in both these muscles. The distance is cut down since we are slower running backwards than forwards.
You can still workout in a group setting but the baseline workout is adjusted to exactly what your body needs. If we just stick with the baseline workout we will get stronger but we might see plateaus in our strength and speed. We might feel beat up and in pain after the workout instead of tired and "good sore".
Here's another example of adapting the baseline workout to an ID.
Every 2:30 x 6 rounds
3 Heavy Barbell Push Press
6 Heavy Deadlifts
100m Sprint
This would be for someone who moves efficiently and has been training for a couple years. They might be good at endurance or workouts 10-15 minutes long. Here we focus on creating the greatest heart rate variability with more of an anaerobic capacity (sprint and all out effort) over a shorter period of time with built in rest which diminishes over time but still requires max effort.
All three of these workouts will get results. Adapting them to work for you will get you results faster. Let's be honest, who doesn't want faster results?
If you've come to class with any nagging pain or injury we have adapted your movements, sets, and reps. Our goal is to continue to educate you on how to do this on your own. We've been slowly building up our movement library on Youtube (under playlists) and our programming is loaded with tons of unilateral movements to see the unlimited number of variations and movements we can do with our body. Sometimes we need a heavy barbell. Dumbbells, kettlebells, and resistance bands might be your go to in days you don't feel great. This is why we push hard on building your mind muscle connection. It teaches you how to listen to your body and determine what it needs.
So why am I bringing this up? One, we are a business helping people move efficiently and want you to know why we do the things we do. Two, think on a deeper level of movements for those who want more than just a social hour and sweat session with the TRiBE. Third, to let you know we provide 30 minute Advance Movement Sessions (AMS) to identify your weaknesses and show you adaptable movements you can swap into the workout when you see them come up.
This is a quick intro into individual design and some of the thought process Nadine and I go through to help you stay moving every day. Next week we will discuss some advance movements that you can start implementing into our group class that you have already seen. Maybe next time you see deadlifts in a workout, you will know an adaptable movement to make sure the rest of your week is pain free.
If this feels like something up your alley and want to get schedule an Advance Movement Session, click the button.
“There are no bad movements, just more efficient ones.”