The FITSPRO Podcast

Pricing is one of the biggest roadblocks that new and old coaches run into. Not knowing what to charge, and having mindset blocks around different price ranges. Along with not knowing whether to grandfather people, and when they want to increase their prices, or even how to increase their prices. 

That’s what we are going to dive into in today’s episode. These are just opinions and my thoughts, so take them for what they’re worth, but I hope that they provide some questions or perspective on the topic. Maybe some affirmation of what you already knew in your gut. 

Premium pricing & Discounts

How to use discounts but not devalue your offer - price higher, then cut

I am talking about this topic from the perspective of someone in the health and fitness industry in the online space.

Most coaches start off with some kind of one on one offer whether you are in the nutrition space, fitness, PT or something else. One on one is likely going to fall into premium pricing.

It’s a high touch offer, the demands time from you. In other words, it’s active income, not passive. Which is more of a premium.

I want you to be able to look at that objectively when deciding on your pricing. We don’t want to just say that we are $500 a month because you pulled that number out of your asshole. I want you to lay out the deliverables of what it is that you offer, what value they are receiving and also what time it takes from you. I’ve said this 1 million times but you want to feel compensated for the work that you are doing otherwise you will end up resenting our clients. And that’s just some thing that is silly and doesn’t need to happen.

So let’s say that your offer is above $250 a month, or above $300 a month. You are in my opinion now into premium pricing. Again that is going to be very individual. Maybe you do one call per week, or no calls, but use Voxer to communicate with your clients. If you have taken my fitspro foundations course, you have all of this laid out in your final offer breakdown.

There is messaging out there on both ends of the spectrum - be a gucci brand and never give discounts, and then the need to be accessible.

Frankly you need to decide where your brand is going to sit in the market place. But I don’t think you need to go fine yourself a box either.

So let’s talk about ways you can be premium and offer incentives and discounts.

The slippery slope that can come with discounting your offer is the expectation for people to then just wait for the next discount. In turn, devaluing your offer.

So, when launching, one approach we can take is to price your offer at the higher range of the value you’ve assigned it, and then discount it to a price still with your value buffer. So maybe you could charge $329 to $379. You list the price high and then discount it to a price you still feel good about.

Another option is to ADD value for free vs cutting the price of your offer. Can you create something or add a call or service to make your offer even more desirable? Ideally this is a 1:many add on or something that DOES NOT require you in real time. For example, if they enroll in your coaching by x date, they get access to an excluding on demand training, or a group webinar for planning out their fitness goals this year.

Discounts and promos can be inline with premium offering. That’s my point. You can do both and feel compensated.

I do not suggest heavily discounting your premium pricing. Or if you do, make it limited to the first month for instance.

We ended part 1 as we arrived to the hospital in active labor, and my utter misconception of what that would look like. If you missed it please be sure to listen to 193 before tuning into this episode. If you don't, I'll just make clear again that this is MY STORY and no one elses. Please refrain from making it any more or less than it is.

With that, let's continue!

UNMEDICATED LABOR (in hospital)

In triage we discovered baby was posterior and his head was tilted. This was one of my greatest fears, if not my greatest fear. I knew that posterior babies often lead to back labor and that was something that I didn’t think I could handle in an unmedicated setting.

For context, my baby had been in perfect LOA position for five weeks leading up to labor. I had been feeling contractions in my sacrum and having pressure in my rectum. But I wasn’t having low back pain like people talked about. So I was grateful to keep progressing as is.

Once we knew his position, the objective was to get baby in a better position, and to drop lower because he was having a hard time entering the pelvis. We did a check when I got into the room and I was at 5 1/2 cm but the baby was still at a -3 or two meaning had barely entered the pelvis. And I was 90% effaced. Aka solid dilation and cervix nearly completely thinned but baby had not dropped.

The staff was AMAZING. We did inversions, side lying hip release (my right side was SO TIGHT my leg almost didn’t drop at ALL when I let my right leg relax - pulling babes head in that direction), forward leaning hip circles, hip and belly releases/vibrations, prone and supine positions. One of the nurses said she’d never seen such an active labor in all her years of nursing. The level of activity was also noted in my chart summary - which I had to read through to get this timeline straight in preparation for this podcast. Because in labor, time is a BLUR.

During contractions I’d tuck my hips underneath me, lifting the belly. This felt HORRIBLY uncomfortable. Not painful but so uncomfortable.

Contractions began to feel much more anterior vs sacral/back. WINNING.

I and the medical staff thought for sure we were going to meet bebe boy on 11/22/22 - we even talked about how cool of a birthday it would be…but he had other plans.

I labored HARD from 5pm - 10:00pm to gain 1.5cm (5 or 6 to 7-8cm).

When I hit 7cm, there was a shift in my demeanor and mindset needs. I put in my Christian hypnobirthing sound tracks and let labor take over. I went with my body. And it was one of the most intense spiritual experiences I imagine exists…for the next three to four hours.

During this time, I was in nearly every labor position you can think of. Rocking on all fours, diagonal lunges, deep squats, birthing ball and peanut ball both used, leaning forward on the back of the toilet.

Again, it was the most primal thing I’ve ever done. The sounds, the swaying, the breathing, the relying on wisdom of other women who have gone before me.

* Another fear I found around labor in prepping for it was the fear of just how vulnerable I would be and feel if I went all in. And being okay with that. Being okay with whatever sounds, movements, thoughts, needs came up. That might sound silly but for someone as unemotional and analytical as I am, it was a big deal.

Courses I took: MamaSteFit Birth Prep, Pain Free Birth, Christian Hypnobirthing.

Most important questions asked throughout all of these courses was:

How I wanted to feel in my labor process? And values I wanted held in my birthing space.

* Calm, autonomy, joy, freedom, fluid, peaceful, and supported

It was extremely important to me to not have fear or external pressure enter my birth space. Dare I say, I wanted to have fun.

I got all of that and it was largely in part to also facing the following sentences and beliefs beforehand. These were from both the Pain Free Birth course and MamaSteFit birth prep.

What you believe about labor will undoubtedly show up in your birthing process.

A vaginal birth is: 

* my answer: the ideal for mom and baby outside of emergency.

A cesarean birth is:

* my answer: an intervention for medical emergency

I wanted, planned and prepped for an unmedicated vaginal birth. And I nearly got it. But bebe Miller had other plans.

My labor was everything I thought it would be from a physical and spiritual standpoint and so much more. I feel like I got to have three birth experiences in one. I got to experience nearly everything I saw for myself, plus paths and routes that I didn’t.

With that - with wanting an unmedicated vaginal birth, I did have plans laid out for when I would be okay with a cesarean, knowing full well that birth does not stick to a pre-set plan. My midwife encouraged me to write out and consider what interventions I’d be okay under what circumstances.

For me, a cesarean was a go if:

* Mom or baby heart rate was elevated or decelerated

* Infection occurred

* Baby lacked oxygen from cord issues or lack of fluid

* If forceps, vacuum or episiotomy was going to be used for delivery. That was a hard no for me because of likelihood of 3rd or 4th degree tear.

Other hard nos for me were:

* Internal balloon or manual dilation

My labor took many turns. It was an intense, wild ride and my favorite life experience to date. It ended in an emergency C section after laboring at a 7-8 for 3-4 hours with no progress, and pushing at a 10 for an hour.

Today I share the full story. Please respect it and know that it is mine, nothing else. It means nothing for your birth experience. Past or present. I simply share because I have always been amazed by birth stories even before I considered having children myself.

I was a woman terrified of labor. It was a reason I was hesitant to ever have kids. Perhaps my story will be of some perspective, benefit or redemption to other moms or moms to be out there. I know hearing others stories is monumentally helpful to me. Thus, I pass along my own. 

Let us begin with making clear:

Shame has no place in the process and experience of labor.

I was talking to an old 1:1 fitness client who had recently had a delivery that played out many of her fears, and almost none of what she had planned or wanted. She was left with a lot of questions and what ifs, wondering if she would have just “x” would things have been different?

I hadn’t given birth at this point but I told her that I thought those questions, and having questions post delivery was very...

Lifting weights is the best. You know this is my philosophy - that weight lifting and movement is not a season, but something we ideally take part in until our days come to an end. Muscle mass is king, and mobility is arguably also king. We can get both of these via strength training.

BUT, there are certain ratios to be considered in traditional strength training that need to be considered for this long haul journey of slanging weights around.

Today we discuss deadlift, back squat, front squat, step up, pull ups, dips etc - how set ups and strength may be different based on anatomical structure and biases, but can help balance the body and prevent injury.

**Mind you I am not a medical professional and this episode should not take the place of diagnosis or direction from a medical professional. Please consult physical therapists, chiropractors and any other medical professionals before making changes to your training.**

For instance in Pure PROgramming, I give coaches options for different assessments they can independently research and use with their clients. Some require further certification and training. But would totally be within their scope if certified. Today we are discussing general standards and metrics for strength and strength balance between movements and sides of the body.

When programming for the masses (templated program) vs individual, it can be beneficial to think "balanced” + “common issues & desires” of whomever you're programming for. Very generally speaking, that might look like:

Hinge - 2-3 (Main lift and accessory patterns)

Squat - 2 (Main lift and accessory patterns)

Push - 2 (vertical and horizontal)

Pull - 2 (vertical and horizontal)

Carry 1

**or similar ratios to these - again “balanced”

These are your areas of focus for volume of each pattern per week. Think very broad. Don’t stress, this isn’t going to make or break your progress over a decade if some programming doesn’t fall perfectly in these ratios.

So, how did I come up with that?

Well, first off…hinging (deadlift) should be stronger than squatting patterns, so potentially more focus there. And then, I’d speculate after years of training humans in person, online, in the athletic space, and gen pop, that most people are “quad dominant” and have weak posterior chains overall. Or at least a lack of awareness in the posterior chain. So hinge gets two to three points of focus, squatting gets two, and we balance out vertical and horizontal pressing and pulling. Then have at least one day of a carry variation for good measure. But would be VERY open to two or three, as there are so many options. And generally core work is needed - whether in the form of a carry or not. Remember to also think of patterns vs one exercise.

I throw in hip thrusts with hinging. Hinging is not restricted to deadlifts only. Right? WE have options my friends.

When I say “points of focus” I mean large compound movements per week. That can be unilateral or bilateral, but a compound, heavily loaded version of those patterns is being hit for “that” number per week.

Thus, you’ve identified a “balanced” program, and that’s lovely. Nothing wrong with that. It’s how I largely structured my signature Built By Annie Program. But, please feel free to think about how you could choose or create a training split that favors vertical pulling for a phase, or posterior chain work,

How to find or choose the right business mentor.

I was asked on IG a while back if I ever hired a business coach. The answer to that is no if we’re referring to a 1:1 biz coach.

While I prefer 1:1 for a specific service like accounting or a funnel build out, or managing a podcast, I actually prefer to learn on my own at my own pace.

I am really big on implementation of specific needs for gaps in my business. For me, that has come through multiple courses, and investing in one off services or masterclasses for guidance in a given area.

With that, I know many people prefer a 1:1 coach in various spaces, be it fitness or business, or general life coaching.

So, let’s talk about what you need in a business mentor. Because I still chose my courses and teachers based on a few key things. Things that I believe apply to also hiring a 1:1 business mentor.

Mind you I have definitely made the decision to NOT sign up with various coaches. And I think that speaks volumes as well.

These might surprise you. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But in my opinion, these are the most important factors in choosing a mentor.

Know what you need mentorship on

This is unequivocally the most important piece. It is your responsibility to be crystal clear on what exactly you need from your experience with a mentor.

Expectations are everything. And they will lead to success or disappointment. Because even if you think you have no clarity, I guarantee you have subconscious expectations. We need to bring those into the light and identify them.

That way, we know if this mentor can guide you in that or not. I remember once I began applying for a high level mastermind/1:1 hybrid and the coach actually told me via dm that she didn’t think her mentorship was what I needed. Looking back, I actually think it was, but I wasn’t as clear as I needed to be on what it was that I needed. So, that’s my bad.

Moral is, get clear on what you need. What boxes do you need to check? And can this mentor help you do that? Is that within their wheel house? 

In 2022 one of my Fitspros and 1:1 biz client of over a year moved on to her new coach who could fill a different gap for her than I could. I am not passionate about building teams. Hiring coaches and assistants, for sure. But building teams is not my niche. So, she hired for THAT need.

Know your next season. Define it. Hire accordingly.

Do they run their business in a way that is appealing to you? That you want to emulate?

This might be one of the most important points. Do they use the tactics, approaches, marketing, and business model that you want to build?

I know this might sound counter to my “no one size fits all approach” and “I don’t make mini me’s” in my business coaching. But also, what will you be learning from this person?

If not the same exact tactics, there is something you’re learning from them that you’ve seen in their business. Maybe it’s their schedule, or again, the model - the way they’ve built out their offer suite. There is likely some stage of their business that was or is appealing to you.

Perhaps it is as simple as their overall philosophy around entrepreneurship. That’s what it was for me when I bought courses from Hillary Rushford back in the day - she was a personal stylist, but I was really drawn to her general approach to business. It was counter to what I saw in the health and fitness industry. And definitely different to what coaches in our space...

I remember saying during my internship at University of Portland to the head coach, I don’t know sports. I don’t know positions, or what people should be doing. So I questioned my ability to be a strength coach. And Bradford Scott essentially said to me that we are more so in the business of optimizing the functionality of the human body and training sports. And that resonated with me more than anything ever in my entire life. 

That’s what drew me to strength and conditioning in the first place. For me, it was the human body and physiology in general. And that is what I have observed a lot of in 2022 via different sporting events. I did actually consider early in my fitness training career going into the niche of strength and conditioning for MMA athletes. 

I’ve been a fan of MMA since I was 16 or 17. And there was a couple fighters locally that Nathanael used to be training partners for. That kind of brings us to the first observation that I have made. Sporting events that have changed or challenged or encouraged my view of strength and conditioning have been the UFC, watching the Olympics, and the CrossFit games. This episode is drawing some broad stroke conclusions from my observations of all of these high-performance events.

Mobility is king

I’ve mentioned this on other podcast episodes, but the Olympics had a large part in challenging my view of the spine, keeping a neutral spine, and the role that spinal mobility plays in the body‘s ability to move as a unit overall. We will expand on that idea today with mobility in general being king (in my opinion) on the movement side. Your aerobic base or fitness is the king on the fitness or conditioning side. Mobility is king of movement. We see this across the CrossFit games, certainly in the Olympics, and most definitely in MMA. Especially jujitsu or other forms of grappling. 

Where someone lacks mobility, there is compensation and often injury. Having mobility through your end ranges in the ability to control it is a strength. End of story. It’s an advantage more often than not. Do not mistake this for uncontrolled flexibility. That is not what I’m talking about.

The next time the Olympics rolls around, look for mobility throughout the entire body. Look for it in discus, or javelin, or even rowing, obviously in gymnastics and other acrobatic events. But also in other extreme sports like snowboarding.

Train explosiveness

As someone who is a huge fan of programmer of tempo, we often think of tempo as slowing down movements with intent. But we can also use tempo to encourage and train explosiveness. Being able to explode, and respond to things rapidly is an element of athleticism. If you want to feel like an athlete for life, mode training explosiveness and things like reaction time will keep your name off. In addition to that mobility piece. Moving slow is important more often than not, but moving quickly is also important. And it doesn’t need to be feared.

Adding in for speed like a ladder drill to your warm-ups can be a fun way to do this. We’re intentionally using box jumps super setted with deadlifts. Even doing more jump rope. In the upper body we can use countermovement push/pull exercises on a pulley system or with bands. It doesn’t have to be plyometric push-ups. It just needs to involve speed.

We can absolutely train the adaptation of power production as opposed to force production or in addition to force production. Force production being strength, where time and speed are not a factor.

Again, this is something that I did a lot of early in my strength training. I was also Olympic lifting at that time so speed and power work...

In many contexts, we hear that less is more.

You say it in health and fitness all the times. Focusing on small daily habits that stack up rather than trying to do it all at once. In my experience I’m juggling college, internships, working full-time, and life in general to growing my business, focusing on less and choosing seasons tends to allow for the most productivity and progress. This is the basis of one of my favorite books, and some thing I require or encourage my foot screws to read. That is the book, Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

The book and the concept of the lessons more is fairly meaningless without practice and application. It requires you to define what is a priority, or essential and also, equally as important, to define what is not. You’re giving yourself permission to not do certain things, to do less. And those things might be very good, and things that you do indeed want to accomplish, but we can’t accomplish everything at one time.

In that same breath, you absolutely can accomplish more than maybe you think in one year by focusing on less in a given season. That is what today’s episode is about - how you will hopefully be able to get more of what you want done in 2023 by doing less.

This is going to be especially applicable to entrepreneurs. It’s not just for those early in business, or more mature in business. And nearly any season I have experienced so far, our endless possibilities and what we can focus on. And a never ending to do list if we aren’t careful.

We talked about goal setting for this year in a previous episode. You will hear some overlap in this episode. But we are going to start by identifying one to three goals, and work backwards from there. This is not rocket science. And this is not new. But it’s needed nonetheless. We will consciously and subconsciously always come up with more that can be done. We are very good at filling white space or a lack of clarity with busywork. Having a clear focus to refer back to you again and again can mitigate that.

So what are your one to three goals. I am going to focus on business. Feel free to apply the concepts to whatever makes sense for you.

Is it getting to a certain amount of clients? Making a certain amount of money? Focusing on the email list growth. Each of these seems simple enough, but are massive tasks in your business if you want to make significant growth in these areas. And they require strategy, and refinement as you go.

Once you determine your one to three goals, it’s important to look at if these three goals affect one another are completely separate from one another. I could see email list growth and sales or client roster growth going hand-in-hand. Essentially you are focusing in on optimizing email marketing as a nurturing and sales tactic to help you reach the goal of getting more clients or higher revenue. Maybe your approach to gaining more revenue is creating more income streams. That’s the next task that I want you to complete. Determining goals or mile markers that you would need to achieve in order to reach these 1 to 3 year long goals.

If you want to have a certain number of clients by the end of the year, you first need to recognize that this means you will achieve the goal by the end of the year, not in month one. How many points do you need to attain on a monthly or quarterly basis, whatever makes most sense for you? And what is the plan and marketing strategy for that to happen. We can’t just wish for these things to happen, or say that they are going to happen and expect them to without any strategy in place.

Same with growth on your email list. Where are the email subscribers coming from?

I adore the topic of this episode. The idea of lifting technique is the literal reason I created Movement 101 in 2017 after rehabbing from a back injury that happened during squatting back in 2014-ish.

Now, I would be lying if I said that this back injury didn’t lead to me becoming a bit of a movement elitist. I’ve used this term before. And for me, it refers to this belief that one way to lift is the best way, that buffer zones are dangerous, and that pain is caused by bad movement patterns. It’s an aggressive and quite frankly tainted viewpoint. Which makes sense, because for me, it was formed in light of a pretty daunting injury.

This becomes a dangerous view because, one, it’s based in fear. It also doesn’t take into account bio individuality of the person who is performing the lifts. And it denies the truth that we can have perfect form and experience pain. And we can also have poor form and not experience pain. These things are not always dependent on one another. Lifting technique is not that black-and-white. So in today’s episode we are going to focus on some key principles that are very important within lifting technique and why they are important. Because there are certainly principles based in bio mechanics that are objective truths.

There are also pieces to training movement technique that lead to positive byproducts. And lifting technique is equally as important for those results.

While becoming a movement elitist is often based around fear or black-and-white thinking, there is definitely truth to the fact that positive lifting technique, or quality lifting technique does have a large safety component to it.

The safety that comes from quality lifting technique is often based in efficiency.

We want to generally move the body in the most efficient way possible, or the most mechanically advantageous way possible. Meaning that we are getting the most out of our movement patterns in the safest way that we can. And that’s really what lifting technique does.

It builds quality movement patterns. As a little caveat, I have had a conversation with one of my Physical Therapy friends and movement technique is important, but movement variety is also important. Because by drilling the same exact movement patterns over and over again, underload, for years or decades, we can actually end up limiting ourselves, and causing overuse injuries. That’s some thing that has come up for me personally in my training while I was pregnant. Before I was pregnant I started following the a TG program, and then during my pregnancy I transitioned into following the MamaSteFit prenatal program. And both of these exposed planes of movement and different types of rotation, or just different movement patterns that I had clearly neglected through programming for myself for almost 10 years. I say that because often times I think that when we talk about movement technique we veer towards the big lifts or the big movement patterns of squat, hinge, push, pull and carry. But all movement has technique involved, and quality technique is important for proficiency.

You’ve likely heard me talk about proficiency on other episodes in regard to building both larger muscle cells, and hypertrophy, as well as overall strength.

Having quality lifting technique and building repeatable neural pathways from your nervous system to the motor units that you are recruiting within each muscle fiber is going to be beneficial for putting on muscle and building strength. Strength is a skill, movement patterns are a skill, which is why having good lifting technique is going to be beneficial to you. From a safety standpoint,

To keep one Instagram account or split it?

I could answer this question in one to two sentences so I assume this will be a shorter episode. But one I can refer people to over time becaaaauuussse….

This is one of the most common questions that I get, specifically in regards to Instagram. Often times people have a personal Instagram account to begin with and then they transition into wanting to build a brand or business, and it’s only normal to wonder if you should start a separate account, or keep your personal account as you transition into that business.

I can’t give you a finite answer. Because with most things it depends. But more often than not I lean towards keeping one account. If you really feel that your personal account has nothing to do with your business, and you aren’t going to continue growing your personal account, then you can totally start a business account and go all in with that. Letting your personal account know that if people would like to follow you for whatever it is you’re Brand is going to be they can go follow the new account. That’s certainly one approach that you can take.

I find that most people created a personal account that is still mostly in line with their brand. So keeping it as one makes sense.

I am for one platform as long as you can:

Managing two social media accounts consistently is a massive task. It’s hard enough to be consistent with just one, which is why I really encourage people to keep it as one as long as you possibly can.

When splitting your Instagram account makes sense:

Splitting makes the most sense to me when you are in fact going to post a lot more personal stuff on your personal page than what you would like to post on your brand's page. You saw me do this with me Meandering Miller’s during our world travels. I would still post about the world travels on my business page, but I wanted a place where I could really dump all of the travel experiences and more life based stuff that was not specific to my business.

You see people often times do this once they start a family or maybe they want to post about their kids a lot more on their personal page, so they create a page specific to that. Versus sharing all of that on their business page. And this really does encapsulate the nuance and give and take that is building a personal brand. The personal part of a personal brand is actually far less than what people think. Building a personal brand does not mean that your entire life needs to be on the Internet. It simply means that you are the face of the business, and people need to feel that they can relate to you. The barrier for that is actually quite low. And boundaries can be very helpful with this process.

Having two separate accounts can definitely be one of those boundaries. And you don’t need to link your personal account to your business account if you don’t want to. Depending on what it’s named, it may still be very easy for people to find. I know this sounds a bit all over the place, but these are very personal decisions.

I find that there is commonly resistance with people wanting to share or be vulnerable on the internet. And again I think there’s a misconception with what needs to be shared in order to establish a relatable personal brand. It’s much more about you being yourself than it is about sharing pieces of your life that you don’t see a need to share for your business. My boundaries have gotten stricter and stricter with this as I have grown, and I don’t even have a massive audience. So if that is you, please know the power of building a personal brand. And that you can’t be a robot and do it successfully.

This is something that we go over extensively inside at the loading portion of a Pure PROgramming. But I think that it’s a really simple and effective conversation to have for trainees who are just following a program as well as a topic to revisit if you are a coach. It’s very easy to get married to one approach and forget that these other options exist. And that one of these might make sense for one of your clients or even one portion of a program; where another loading method might work better for another portion of the same lift that you are prescribing or that you are doing yourself. So maybe for the main lift percentages makes sense, and then for most of the accessory work reps in reserve makes the most sense. Things like experience come in to play, and training age.

So today we are going to dive into all of that. We will go over reps and reserve, rate of perceived exertion, Amrap‘s, percentages, and the rule of two. All of these are simply methods that we can use to prescribe a load or how much weight someone is lifting for a given exercise. That’s all these are.

My hope would be that you have a pretty good idea of which one to use when when you’re either choosing load for yourself or a client.

RPE and RIR

I actually became a familiarized with rate of perceived exertion, or RPE through conditioning, versus weightlifting. But it can be applied to nearly any type of exercise where intensity is a factor.

There are two different versions one where it is a scale of 1 to 20, and a more commonly used adaptive version which is a 1 to 10 scale. One being no effort at all, and 10 being maximal effort. Generally speaking in training where we are pushing our muscles and attempting to elicit strength or growth, the RPE is going to be above seven. It’s going to be a challenging load.

No another loading method is kind of the yang to the yang of our PE. And that is RIR, or reps in reserve.

I definitely came to know this in my college lifting days. But we referred to it as “go until you have one to two reps left in the tank.”

From a programming standpoint, you might give a range of reps that you want them to hit, like 8 to 12 reps, or 6 to 8 reps. With a weight that is a two reps in reserve. So if they hit eight reps and they feel like they could do three more, the weight needed to be heavier if that makes sense.

It’s literally just working on fatigue, you might just say perform reps until one to two RIR. I might use this on an exercise like push-ups, or strict dips, or pull ups. some thing where I know the number of reps they’re going to be able to perform is within the range that I want them to be hitting. For instance I would never just say one rep in reserve for bodyweight walking lunges for my clientele. They would be doing walking lunges for 30 minutes. Which likely does not fit their goals or the goals of my programming. And that’s why it’s so important to know the goal of your programming or a given exercise prescription, because we want to choose the best loading method for that.

You can think of reps in reserve as the opposite of RPE. So, 10 RP would be zero reps in reserve, 9RPE would be one rep in reserve, so on and so forth. Now inside a Pure PROgramming I have these charts all lined up next to one another, and I prefer ranges then definite numbers. That’s just because how many reps somebody has left in the tank is going to depend day today at a given load. That’s why the next method is not always my favorite. And that will be percentages.

A nice little transition is to talk about training age when choosing between rate of perceived exertion, and percentages. You could argue either way,