Since first running the fourth CrossFit affiliate gym in the world with Robb Wolf and Nicki Violetti many years ago, I’ve changed the way I’ve done things with my gym’s fitness classes (we haven’t been a CrossFit affiliate since 2010 I think, but these are CrossFit-type classes in format). The most significant changes I made in the process of evolution were structuring the classes to first and foremost emphasize strength, and to remove the stopwatch from the conditioning workouts (outright heresy in the CrossFit world for which I took some shit early on, although not once from one of my own clients).

For a number of years, I’ve had a lot of CrossFit gym owners and trainers come to me for advice and consulting regarding how to run their training programs and businesses. Those who come to me usually have similar desires—to shift their fitness programs to be more strength-oriented like ours (otherwise they wouldn’t be coming to me). One of the things I hear is that their clientele is strength-training-averse. The clients don’t like it when their workouts have strength training, and the trainers ask me how I deal with that. The simple answer is that I don’t because I don’t have to.

Our clients have never experienced a Catalyst Athletics fitness class that doesn’t contain one to two strength lifts. They don’t know any different, so there’s no process of becoming accustomed to a new format. However, we do get quite a few clients from CrossFit gyms who have trained in totally different formats. Interestingly enough, we don’t really see much objection to our approach even with these clients.

I have to assume that this acceptance is the result of a couple things. First, we’re very clear about what we do and why. In other words, we don’t bounce around among programs and new ideas every three weeks—our clients know our philosophy and methods because they’re constant and reliable. Second, they see our weightlifters training and get a sense of how much importance we place on strength.

Another part of it is that we’ve never done the typical CrossFit strength workout in which the entire workout is a single lift… and that’s it. If I were paying $150-300/month to go to a gym and I showed up and saw Back Squat 5-5-5-5-5 was the entire workout, I’d be less than happy too, and wonder what exactly I was paying for.

Each of our classes involves a structured, trainer-led warm-up, one to two strength or Olympic lifts, and then a conditioning workout. In other words, our clients always get the full package. This more than likely makes our emphasis on strength work a lot more palatable even to clients who may not be overly excited about getting stronger—they still get to blow themselves out on a metCon each day.

Part of being a good trainer or gym owner is knowing what you believe in and having sound rationale for it. That is, if a client comes to you and asks, ‘Why are we doing this?’ you need to have a legitimate answer that you can deliver without hesitation and without becoming defensive. We do what we do here at Catalyst Athletics and if you don’t believe in it or don’t like it, you need to go train somewhere else. This isn’t being hostile, it’s being straightforward and firm in your philosophies and methods—and you can only be that if what you do makes sense and works.

This approach isn’t for everyone. Not every client out there cares about getting stronger. I can’t say I support that view, but it’s theirs to have, and I’m not an evangelist, so I don’t have any interest in changing their minds. They can come train with us the way we train and we’ll provide the best training possible and deliver the results they’ve worked for. If they find it’s not what they like doing, they can leave and we won’t be bitter about it, but we certainly won’t beg and plead and capitulate to keep a client around. We’re the experts, which is why the clients come to us.

To move your program to more like what we do at Catalyst Athletics, I suggest a gradual shift rather than an abrupt, dramatic change. Get your clients acclimated to the new approach incrementally, let them see that it’s not so odious to do some structured strength work, and as they begin to accept it more and more, you can insert more and more of that strength work into the program. As an example, if you currently throw in one strength emphasis workout per week and add one more strength workout per week every four to eight weeks until you reach your final goal.

The structure of our program is quite simple but very effective. We typically run six-week cycles, each of which uses different strength exercises, but all of which address the same basic movements. That is, a given cycle always has a squatting exercise, an upper body push exercise, an upper body pull exercise, and a total body or Olympic lifting movement. The sharper of you readers may recognize this as being inspired by Joe Kenn’s Tier System—this is an effective, simple way to organize a program that ensures you’re always hitting the basic movements but also getting variety both for training effectiveness and client enjoyment.

We have three main workouts per week that all of our clients do no matter what days they come in. We don’t have a Monday workout or a Tuesday workout—that’s a perfect way to guarantee that certain clients never do certain lifts. The first day of the week they come in, they do workout one. Over the course of the cycle, they’ll do a very simple progression from higher reps/volume and lower weight to lower reps/volume and higher weight until reaching a week in which they test 1-rep maxes.

Our clients love the strength work. They love seeing their very measurable progress, and they focus more on this part of the training than any other. It’s entirely possible to shift your own gym into this paradigm with the right attitude and gradual transition.