Today’s guest post comes from Todd Bumgardner, one of my favorite people and a coach I deeply respect. Todd and Chris Merritt started The Strength Faction not long ago with a simple premise: strength coaching for strength coaches. As coaches, we often put our clients’ health and well‑being first, but The Strength Faction helps by creating a supportive environment where coaches are coached by other coaches. In short, you’re among your people.
I’ve been involved with the Faction myself—invited twice to speak and participate in a Q&A forum—and it has been wonderful to see its growth and how it’s helped many coaches improve their assessment, program design, and coaching skills.
Todd and Chris have just released a new resource, The Strength Faction: Super-Simple Guide to Writing Kick-Ass Training Programs, so you can get a taste of the systems they’ve developed over more than a decade in the industry. These methods have enabled them to write hundreds of individualized programs each month without ever sacrificing quality.
I know every coach hits a point where writing programs becomes a chore. Wouldn’t it be great to learn a system that streamlines the process, reduces the grunt work, and still lets you do what you do best—coach?
How to Make Your Clients Super Strong While Keeping Them Healthy
Something started to shift at the end of the last decade: getting strong became cool. As we move forward, clients come to coaches with clear, measurable strength goals instead of vague, radius-based fat-loss requests. We still see body composition goals, and there are plenty of unusual requests, but it’s exciting that people want to lift hard and perform.
To help others help others, here are practical tips to write training programs that make people strong while staying healthy.
Lower the strength volume
It doesn’t take huge training volume to build strength. In many cases, we overdo it in the name of volume and end up sacrificing other qualities. I learned this the hard way. For a typical three‑day, concurrent program, two strength-focused lifts with eight to twenty-four total reps each are often plenty. Start with core and mobility work, then finish with some energy‑system work to provide a solid stimulus for strength, health, and positive change.
Use concurrent splits
Concurrent programming is a practical approach for general population clients. While highly specialized blocks may yield faster results for some, they don’t serve most people in the long run. Modern life brings varied stressors, so a program that maintains all qualities throughout the year tends to produce lasting strength and health. You can lean a little toward one quality at times, but keep all qualities in play year-round. Rotate phases: one phase a bit more strength‑focused, another with higher conditioning, another with more load‑free movement, while continually training all qualities.
Educate clients on rate of perceived exertion (RPE)
Many people aren’t sure how hard they’re working or how hard they should work. RPE helps with daily auto-regulation. Percentage-based training relies on a single snapshot of the nervous system, which isn’t reliable for an entire month. RPE gives coaches and clients a practical way to adjust intensity to current status.
We use a simple RPE system at our Strength Faction gyms (BSP NOVA in Dulles, VA, and Rebell Strength and Conditioning in Chicago) and with our members:
– 10: maximal effort. No reps left in the tank.
– 9: heavy effort. Could have done one more rep.
– 8: could have done two or three more reps.
– 7: bar speed is snappy when maximal effort is applied.
– 6: bar speed is snappy with moderate effort.
Most work sits in the 7–9 range, with most strength sets around 8 and assistance work around 7.
Progressions, regressions, and the best positions possible
Our first job as coaches is to place a person in the best possible position to succeed. It’s our motto at BSP NOVA and a reminder that progression and regression systems matter. The goal is to choose exercises that allow people to express their strength. Many folks are stronger than they realize when placed in the right positions. That’s why progression and regression systems are so important—and why the 4×4 matrix is a useful tool for constructing them.
The body must feel safe and stable to generate force. If it doesn’t, it slows down the nervous system’s output. If we ask someone to produce force from a position they don’t own, we’re not helping. People are often stronger than they think—they just need to be put in the right positions.
A hypothetical example: the deadlift/hip hinge
If a client can’t dissociate their hips from their spine and rounds their back to reach the bar, you might elevate the bar or use rack pulls, but those can still pose issues. You might then reduce the effect of gravity and load by having them perform a kneeling hinge with a kettlebell behind their back, hinging at the hips while keeping the spine relatively still. This move lets them demonstrate their strength safely. Will they keep this move forever? No. But it’s the best current step to help them learn to move with strength, and with time and coaching, they’ll progress to a more challenging hinge that fits their body.
This example shows how progression and regression systems help us train safely and build strength.
Coach toward mastery
I often quote Dan John. He makes the profound simple and speaks from experience without a sense of superiority. As our first Strength Faction Q&A guest, he shared a story about a client whose results were fading because the coach kept changing things. Dan noted that when progress was strongest, he kept things simple and made only small changes to challenge the body without gimmicks. He emphasized coaching toward mastery—don’t get bored yourself.
If we want to build strong clients, we must help them become skilled lifters. Rather than rotating through new exercises, keep productive staples and load them in new ways. As clients gain skill, they gain strength.
Make people strong
This isn’t an exhaustive guide, but it’s my best effort in about 1,500 words. If you apply these ideas and use them to shape your programming mindset, you’ll be on the right track toward making your clients super strong.
The Super-Simple Guide to Writing Kick‑Ass Training Programs is available now. Check it.
