Setting up monthly programming can be a challenge for owners of the micro-gym running group classes. Sometimes it's tough to match training objectives to the variety of attendance patterns among a client base. Some clients will come twice a week, some up to five or even six times (crazy bastards). Some clients play sports or have other physical activities outside of the programming created for the group; some use the gym environment as their sole physical outlet. It's been mentioned in the early days of CrossFit that the nature of a group class will work against optimizing results for people who are the least and most fit. On top of that, you will have clients that, if your workouts are posted online/made public, will avoid certain workouts that play to their weaknesses (damn cherry pickers). Despite of all of this, it would be remiss of gym owners and training professionals not to take the appropriate steps to attempt to maximize quality of training for all involved.

This is where the Bucket List comes into play. It's a simple way of reorganizing your schedule so that your strength/power/focus work doesn't become locked into a pattern. It's structured enough to be applied to the group class environment, but flexible enough to accommodate the varying nature of people's schedules and ability levels. There are a couple of premises that led to the creation of the Bucket List. They are as follows:

• Stronger athletes will more quickly adapt to the nature of mixed modal metcon work than their weaker counterparts. Therefore, even if GPP is the ultimate goal of a program, dedicated, consistent strength work has to not only be part of the equation but must be given top priority in most circumstances.

• Your group class clients are all training with you AT LEAST twice a week. I don't think I need to go into why anything less than this is not only counterproductive, but possibly dangerous as well.

• Not everyone will be doing exactly the same thing on a day-to-day basis. This was one compromise that had to be made in order to allow for some flexibility in the design of this application. That being said, some semblance of a group class environment is maintained as there will be a designated time during the group sessions for strength training, and the results for gym members will remain on a portion of the whiteboard for the entire week (i.e. Billy can come in on Wednesday and look at what Bobby squatted on Monday).

Before going into too much detail on how the bucket list works, let's put things into context. The photo below is a sample of one week's worth of programming done recently at CrossFit Milwaukee:




At CrossFit Milwaukee, we've been using added strength work to our normal WOD for at least four years. We've used anything from Wendler's 5-3-1 to Starting Strength, to bastardized versions of conjugated programs and CrossFit Football. For the past couple of months we've been using Rutman's Maximum Effort Black Box (MEBB), so some of you may recognize the alternate day lifting pattern, with a full body lift, a lower body focus lift and an upper body lift completed during the sample week that's pictured. Although this structure works well for the most part, there are some issues. If someone comes in Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they will receive the full benefit of the MEBB cycle, getting all three of their lifts in along with a healthy dose of mixed modal conditioning ('sexy metcon,' 'cheesecake,' 'soup' or whatever you want to call it). But what about a client who comes in Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday? Or only on two of those days? Not so much. In the past I've tried to accommodate for this in part by 'shifting' the strength work days from week to week (so the next week might see the full body lift on Tuesday, the lower body lift on Thursday, etc.). This approach is only partly successful because, unless a client is coming to class 4-6 times/week, they are likely missing out on solid, consistent strength work on a week-to-week basis. I think most of us would agree on the importance of prioritizing this kind of work.

By implementing the bucket list, the randomness of various clients' schedules no longer matters. They are held accountable by trainers to make sure that they are getting the required strength work in on their list before they 'die' (i.e. jump into the metabolic conditioning circuit for that day). If they're only showing up two days/week and there are a sufficient number of lifts on the bucket list, particular clients may have to shorten or potentially forgo their metcons altogether (NO “SOUP” FOR YOU!!!) for the week, but again, this may depend on the priorities of the particular gym and client involved. All we do from a scheduling standpoint is to shift the lifts required for the week to a column to the left of the rest of the days of the week. Here's how the above sample week would look when represented in the Bucket List style:



If we have a lifting program involving more volume, more time will be devoted towards the strength/power end of things. Below is the same week, but with the lifts from the 09/26/11 week of CrossFit Football:



In this case, the athletes coming in only twice per week will likely be doing strength/power work the whole time. Using the above example, it wouldn't be unreasonable to get the squats, press and deadlift in on one day and the overhead squat, power snatch, bench and box jump (if time permits) on the other. Although, this is by far ideal as general conditioning goes, consideration must be taken into account for the types of clients that use a CrossFit type box and only come twice per week. I have experience working with distance athletes, professional MMA fighters and general fitness enthusiasts. In most of these cases, it was standard practice for people falling into these categories to have the other domains of their fitness addressed by their sport or other activities outside the context of their time spent in my gym. The fact that they're focusing on strength and power will work to enhance their general conditioning in cases such as these because it likely complements the work they are getting elsewhere. And this type of twice per week/full body workout scheme correlates with what I have heard of the practices of certain professional sports teams that have a heavy in season playing schedule. Lastly, if a client is only making it to the gym twice a week, it's an arguable case that their optimal mix for training would be to focus on a handful of full-body lifts and hopefully get some cardio in on the side.

As demonstrated in the example above, when we've been implementing the bucket list at our gym, we instruct our clients to do the lifts on the bucket list in the order presented. This way when we draw up our programming, we can have them more effectively follow certain protocols. For example, if were drawing from Westside principles (potential bucket list: 5RM Back Squat, 10x3 EMOTM Pull-ups (70% 1RM), 8x2 Power Clean, and 3RM Bench Press), we would want our clients, to the extent possible, having some separation between the maximum effort and dynamic effort days for the same body part. If we decide to follow a Starting Strength format (potential bucket list: 3x5 Back Squat, 3x5 Bench Press, 3x5 Deadlift, 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Press, 3x5 Power Clean, 3x5 Back Squat, 3x5 Bench Press, 3x5 Deadlift), I wouldn't want a client to go onto a second day of doing squats/bench/deadlifts, if they haven't worked power cleans and press at all that week. In the last example, we must acknowledge the fact that, for the 2x/week attendee at least, that not ALL of the lifts will be performed, but there will be a good balance between push/pull movements.

By utilizing the bucket list in this fashion, several objectives are accomplished:

1. Flexibility – a wide variety of strength programs can be worked into a gym's otherwise generalized program.

2. Accountability – with all of the class participants for the week being listed on a single portion of the whiteboard, it becomes easier for trainers to see who is getting the required strength work in for that particular week and who needs to be 'motivated' to do so. Also, should clients complain about not making progress quickly enough, it is easier to reference the records of their lifts. In my mind, there will almost always be a strong (pun intended) correlation between the athletes that are disciplined about getting their lifts in regularly and the ones smashing CrossFit benchmark scores, losing fat the fastest, etc.

3. Recognition – with the new organization of the board, it's really easy to see how much progress everyone is making. Within the first two weeks of implementing the bucket list at our gym, we had a slew of personal records from both beginners and veterans alike. It was hugely motivating to see 'PR' written next to so many our client's names and all on the same section of the board. I firmly believe that, because clients didn't have to hunt through a week's worth of workouts to find their workout buddies lifting scores, this helped motivate others to reach goals in their own lifts throughout the week.

4. Prioritization – that's right, kids. No more cherry-picking workouts. If you want your metcon madness, you have to earn it. And once you do, you'll likely be happy with your results.

Try working with the bucket list the next time you're charged with programming for a group of people. Let us know how it goes. Because of its flexibility in design, it will be perfectly compatible with the subject of part II in this series concerning programming options – the 'Play Day.'