For Coaches: Writing Workouts With a Clear Stimulus
Updated: 23 hours ago
Here's something that surprised me as a newer coach, which I still am: the movements are the least important decision in a workout. The same movements, equipment and even rep scheme can produce completely different sessions. Thrusters and pull-ups can be a four-minute sprint that leaves athletes on the floor, or a steady twenty-minute grind where nobody should ever need to stop. The movements are the ingredients. The stimulus is the recipe.
When a coach writes a workout without deciding on the stimulus first, the class decides for them. Strong athletes go too heavy and turn a sprint into a slog. Newer athletes pick the hardest scaling and spend the workout resting. Everyone finishes, but few of them trained what the session was supposed to train.
I know this from both sides of the whiteboard. As an athlete, I've loaded a bar for a "quick" couplet because the number looked good next to my name, then spent most of the workout standing over it, catching my breath. As a coach, I've written workouts that looked great on paper and turned into something completely different the moment a real class touched them. Writing around a clear stimulus is a lesson I learned from coaches with more experience than me, and I'm still getting better at it. Here's how I approach it now, with three worked examples that go from intent to the final whiteboard.
IN THIS ARTICLE
Define the Stimulus in One Sentence
Before choosing any movement, I write one sentence that answers three questions: how long should this take, how should it feel, and what should limit the athlete. For example: "A 5- to 7-minute effort where breathing is the limiter and athletes move with only brief pauses." Or: "A 20-minute steady effort at a pace athletes could almost hold for another round."
That sentence becomes the filter for every decision that follows. Loads, rep counts, movement choices and scaling options all have to fit it. If something doesn't fit, it goes, even if it'd look great on the whiteboard.
Three variables do most of the work. Time domain decides which energy systems dominate. Load and movement difficulty decide whether muscles, skill or breathing become the limiter. Rest structure, whether continuous, interval or EMOM, decides how hard athletes can push each piece. Change any one and you change the workout.
Writing the sentence first also makes you a better observer during class. When you know what the workout is supposed to feel like, you can see within a round or two who's on target and who's drifted off it, and you can step in while there's still time to adjust a load or a movement.
Worked Example One: The Short Sprint
Intent: a 4- to 7-minute effort, fast and uncomfortable, where the lungs give out before the muscles do.
Draft: 21-15-9 of thrusters and pull-ups.
The format already points toward a sprint. The real decisions are loading and scaling. The thruster load should be one most athletes can do in big sets when fresh, and the pull-up version should allow sets of five or more without failure. If an athlete can only do a thruster load for three reps at a time, the workout stops being a sprint for them and becomes a heavy grind at twice the target time.
On the whiteboard, I write the target time next to the workout and I brief the class with it: "If you're still going past seven minutes, your load or version was too heavy for today's purpose." That one sentence does more to protect the stimulus than any amount of scaling advice given after the fact. It's the sentence I wish someone had said to me back when I was chasing the number.
Worked Example Two: The Aerobic Grinder
Intent: 20 minutes of steady, sustainable output, with breathing that stays controlled and no long stops.
Draft: 20-minute AMRAP of 10 thrusters, 10 pull-ups, 200-meter run.
This draft is close, but the thrusters work against the intent. Ten thrusters every round, at any meaningful load, turns into a leg-burning, heart-rate-spiking block that forces athletes to stop. For this purpose I'd lower the thruster reps, lighten the load substantially, or swap to a lower-skill movement such as a wall ball or goblet squat. The run can stay, since it supports steady output.
Revised: 20-minute AMRAP of 5 light thrusters, 7 pull-ups (or a scaled version athletes can do unbroken for most of the workout), 200-meter run. Now the round is short enough that athletes can settle into a rhythm, which is the whole point. When I've run a version like this, you can feel the room change around the eight-minute mark. The frantic first rounds give way to a steady, almost quiet hum of people moving. That's the stimulus showing up.
Coach's cue: Every workout needs a why, and every rep should serve it.
Worked Example Three: The Skill Under Fatigue
Intent: practice a technical movement while moderately fatigued, with quality as the priority and conditioning as a secondary effect.
Draft: 5 rounds for time of 400-meter run and 7 toes-to-bar.
The format encourages racing, and racing tends to wreck the quality of a skill. If the goal is practicing toes-to-bar well, an interval structure often serves better: every 3 minutes for 5 rounds, run 200 meters and complete 7 toes-to-bar. The rest built into each interval lets athletes hit each set with good positions, and the target is quality, not time. I'd tell the class exactly that during the brief, and I'd give a clear scaling option such as knee raises or a smaller range of motion, so every athlete can practice a version they can do well.
Communicate and Protect the Intent
A stimulus that lives only in your head doesn't help anyone. Share it clearly and briefly before the workout, and connect it to the decisions athletes will make. When they know the target time and the intended feel, they choose better loads and scaling on their own. My briefing usually covers four things:
What the workout is for, in one sentence.
How long it should take, or how the pacing should feel.
What should limit them, and what shouldn't.
One scaling principle that keeps the intent for everyone.
Scaling then becomes about preserving the stimulus, not just making things easier. The article on scaling for mixed-ability classes goes deeper on that side of it. After the workout, check whether you hit the target. If most of the class finished at double the intended time, the stimulus was missed, and the next workout you write should reflect what you learned. I keep a quick note after every class I coach: intended time, actual spread. Over a few weeks, those notes have taught me more than any template.
Write the Why First
The habit is simple: before a single movement goes on the whiteboard, write the one-sentence intent. Then test every choice against it. It's what's working for me so far; take what fits your gym. You'll likely write fewer flashy workouts and more effective ones, and your athletes will train with more purpose, because you gave them a reason for every rep.
Designing purposeful programming is what I spend most of my time doing, whether it's shared supplemental work or individual plans built around an athlete's schedule. If you want to talk through workout design, or you're wondering what kind of support fits one of your athletes, reach out to me here.
Your turn. I'm still learning as a coach too. If you run this differently in your gym, share it in the comments below. I read every one and would love to learn from you. If it was useful, tap the heart so more coaches find it.
Keep reading
Further reading: CrossFit
Coach Fritz Bautista · Head Coach, ATHLETESPHERE
CrossFit Level 2 Trainer (CF-L2) ✓ · CrossFit Programming Certificate · MBA · Digital Marketing Certified · Coaching athletes from all walks of life online
Comments