Make Friday Session Planning Day

It was one of the best changes I made to running my group fitness sessions. A simple change which freed up so much headspace and helped me feel much more organised.

All I did was assign a couple of hours of my time on a Friday afternoon to planning out next week’s workouts.

Staying up planning a workout in a mad rush the night before a session isn’t fun. It’s kind of like letting the dirty dishes pile up in your sink until there are no clean one’s left and you’re having to wash a dish just to use it.

Not to mention that knowing your dirty dishes still haven’t been done will weigh on your mind every time you enter the kitchen.

Not having a system for being proactive with your session plans is the same. By putting aside some time each week you’ll free up your mind to work on other areas of your business or just have a break knowing that the sink is sparkly clean.

Here are some guidelines I recommend if you’re tired of the mad scramble to plan workouts everyday:

#1: Put aside an hour or two a week for planning all the sessions for the following week.

I liked Friday afternoons because my last session for the week was at 10:30am on a Friday. I’d go home, have some lunch then get set up with my notepad, my computer and some music (and sometimes an alcoholic beverage) and knock those session plans off. Make it fun.

#2: Work from an overall plan.

Once a month (or a block of workouts) you should sit down and plan out the overall flow of your workouts for that period of time. This way you can ensure plenty of variety, plus, when you sit down to plan you know exactly what kind of sessions you need to plan.

If you aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, check out the video from Week 1 of my free email course, 21 Days of Bootcamp Ideas.

#3: Plan the minimum number of sessions possible.

You’re probably already doing this but if you’re not, start. If you run 10 sessions a week, don’t plan 10 different workouts. Instead, use a session more than once.

For example: If you run 3 bootcamp sessions on a Monday, run the same session 3 times, don’t plan a different session for each class.

#4: Plan to completion.

For the best results, don’t give up when your workouts are half planned. Keep at it until every aspect of the session is planned. Future you will thank you.

This includes planning out modifications for different fitness levels and abilities. Don’t fall into the trap of not planning a warm up because you think you’ll come up with one later. The reality is that you’ll probably just forget and then be scrambling for one the night before again.

Places to get help:

One way to make your planning a lot faster is by being able to see what workouts are working for other trainers. By incorporating workouts from other trainers I would sometimes cut down my planning time to just 30 minutes a week.

I recommend BootCraft (because it was made by me!) which gives you access to hundreds of drills from 35+ expert trainers from the Bootcamp Ideas community. Plus, this month we’re adding a Workout Plan feature to help you find completed workouts faster. Annual members get $199 worth of PDF ebooks too. Join the BootCraft side, Skywalker.

Another great resource, if you like running a lot of play- and game-based drills in your sessions, is the Fitness Game Zone created by my good friend Dale Sidebottom. Dale has curated over 500 fitness games for you to take the engagement in your sessions to another level. If you use BOOTCAMPIDEAS20 on checkout, you’ll save some money too (thanks for setting that up, Dale).

Whatever you choose, I hope you’ll join us in making future Friday’s International Plan Your Sessions Day.

Kyle Wood

Kyle Wood created Bootcamp Ideas in 2010 when he was hunting around on the internet for workout ideas. He ran a successful bootcamp in Victoria, Australia and spends his spare time managing this site, adventuring (or lazying) with his wife and find new ways to make bootcamps even better.