Programme Structure and Terminology: How to Read Your Training and other common questions

Every coach lays out their programming a little differently. Open a session in the Stoic App and you’ll see something like this:

A) Trap Bar Deadlift  4x6-8 @31X1 - 120s rest

If that line reads like encryption, this article should help. It runs through how our sessions are structured, what the shorthand means, why we programme the way we do, and what to do when your gym doesn’t have a piece of equipment. This is the article we point every new athlete towards. Read it once now, then come back to it whenever a question comes up mid-session. It’ll answer most of them.

The Order of Movements

Every session begins with the order of movements, marked by letters.

A) followed by B) means you complete all sets of the A exercise before moving on to the B exercise.

A1) A2) is a superset. You alternate between the two exercises before moving on to the next group. A1) A2) A3) is a triple set, completed in sequence before returning to A1) to start the next round.

So in the example below, you’d complete all 6 sets of the trap bar deadlift first, then move on to the 4-set pairing of GHD hip extensions and incline dumbbell presses, performed as a superset.

A)  Trap Bar Deadlift  6x4-6 @21X1 - 120s rest

B1) GHD Hip Extension  4x8-10 @3011 - 60s rest

B2) 80° Incline Bench DB Semi Supinated Press  4x8-10 @3111 - 60s rest

Sets and Reps

Take the shorthand 4x8-10. The first number is your sets: four of them. The second part is your rep range: 8 to 10 repetitions per set.

You’re given a range rather than a fixed number so you can select a weight that challenges you within it. If you hit the top of the range and it felt comfortable, the weight is too light. Go up on the next set. If you’re grinding to reach the bottom number, take some weight off.

Sometimes you’ll be given a single number instead. The same logic applies. You should reach the number without failing before it, but reaching it shouldn’t be easy. We’re trying to give your body enough of a stimulus to force it to adapt.

Table 1. Rep ranges and the qualities they train. The ranges overlap because strength qualities do too.

Coach's Tip: Strength increases come from more than lifting heavier weights. You can become more efficient at a movement, move the same load more smoothly, control it for longer, or produce force faster. All of it counts as progress, which is why tracking your sessions in the app matters so much.

Why We Don’t Use Percentages to Guide Weight Selection

A common question from people joining us off powerlifting-style programmes: why aren’t weights prescribed as a percentage of my one rep max?

Percentage-based training works well for lifters whose lives are built around the barbell. It assumes your 1RM is current and accurate, that you can retest it regularly, and that your nervous system turns up in roughly the same state every week. For a competitive powerlifter peaking towards nine lifts on a single day, those assumptions mostly hold.

For our community, they don’t. A percentage set out ten weeks ago has no idea you’ve just come off nights, spent last week in the field, or are running on four hours of sleep. Loading 85% of a stale 1RM onto a fatigued system is how sessions get missed and how people get hurt.

Rep ranges do the same job with far more flexibility. The range sets the intensity zone, your performance on the day sets the exact load, and your training log keeps progression honest. You self-regulate without needing to retest maxes every few weeks or translate a subjective RPE score into kilograms.

We’ve written about this in full: Why We Don’t Use Percentages to Guide Your Weight Selection, on the articles page.

Tempo

The sequence after the @ symbol (@5010 for example) is the tempo: the speed at which you perform each phase of the lift. The four digits always read in the same order:

• First digit: the lowering (eccentric) phase.

• Second digit: the pause (isometric) at the bottom.

• Third digit: the lifting (concentric) phase.

• Fourth digit: the pause at the top.

• An X means explosive: lift as fast as you can without form breaking down.

The digits keep that order even when the lift starts from the floor. So @3111 on a deadlift means you lift in 1 second, pause for 1 second at the top, lower under control for 3 seconds, and pause for 1 second on the floor before the next rep.

A @50X1 back squat: lower for 5 seconds, no pause at the bottom, drive up explosively, then hold 1 second at the top.

Coach's Tip: Tempo is a tool, not decoration. A controlled eccentric increases time under tension and builds strength in the positions where injuries tend to happen. If you’re rushing the lowering phase so you can move more weight, you’re skipping the part of the lift doing much of the work.

Rest

The final number (4x8-10 @5010 - 60s rest) is your rest between sets. It’s a guideline with a purpose: it keeps resistance sessions to around 60 minutes and it matches the intent of the exercise.

Coach's Tip: For most training outside of specific conditioning pieces, rest long enough that your next set isn’t badly compromised by the previous one. Cutting rest short to ‘feel it more’ just turns a strength session into a poor conditioning session.

Conditioning Formats

AMRAP

As Many Reps (or Rounds) As Possible. You’re given a time limit and complete as much of the prescribed work as you can within it. Most sessions will have the intention written out for you.

Coach's Tip: If no specific intention is given, approach an AMRAP with a steady-state mentality. You don’t want to fly out of the gate and pile in 5 minutes into a 20-minute piece. Pace it so you’re working consistently across the whole time frame.

EMOM

Every Minute On the Minute. Starting from 0 on the clock, complete the required work, then rest for the remainder of the minute. The next block of work starts as the next minute begins.

E2MOM

Every 2 Minutes On the Minute (the number can vary). Complete the required work from 0, then rest until the 2-minute mark, when the next round starts.

Beyond these formats, much of your conditioning will simply be written as time at a given effort or heart rate zone: 40 minutes at Zone 2, or 5 x 3 minutes at threshold. Which brings us to another question we get asked a lot.

Why We Prescribe Times, Not Distances

Time doses everyone the same. Distance doesn’t.

Forty minutes of Zone 2 delivers forty minutes of the intended stimulus whether you run 10 km in 40 minutes or in 55. Prescribe 8 km instead and the slower athlete gets a longer session with more impact and a bigger recovery cost, which is precisely backwards. The people who most need controlled easy volume end up with the most punishing version of it.

Time also keeps easy work honest. Give someone a distance and there’s a finish line to race. Pace creeps up, and the session drifts into the grey zone that fatigues you without making you fitter. A clock removes the incentive. You’re out there for 40 minutes regardless, so you may as well hold the effort you were actually asked for.

And time makes sessions predictable, which matters when your day belongs to your unit rather than your programme. Forty minutes is forty minutes. Terrain, weather and route don’t change it, so it slots into your day reliably. Distance can’t offer that: 8 km of hilly trail and 8 km of flat road are completely different sessions wearing the same label.

Where distance genuinely matters, we use it. Loaded marches at course pace and timed run standards are prescribed as distances because the event you’re preparing for is a distance at a standard. That’s specificity doing its job. General conditioning doesn’t need it.

Substitutions and Scaling: When You Don’t Have the Kit

The most common message we receive: ‘the programme says GHD hip extensions and my gym doesn’t have a GHD.’ Or sled work with no sled, or a single rower that’s permanently occupied. None of this breaks the programme, provided you substitute properly.

Three principles cover almost every case:

1. Match the movement pattern. If the exercise is a hip hinge loading the glutes and hamstrings, substitute another hinge, not a leg press. Same joints, same muscles, same action.

2. Match the intent. Ask what the exercise is doing in the session. A sled push in a conditioning piece is there because it drives the legs and heart rate hard with almost no eccentric load, so it won’t leave you sore for tomorrow’s run. The right substitute preserves that quality, not just the muscle group.

3. Keep your substitute consistent. Whatever you pick, stick with it for the whole cycle so you can track progression against it. Swapping the substitute every week makes your log useless.

Table 2 covers the equipment we’re asked about most.

Table 2. Substitutions for the most commonly missing equipment. For conditioning machines, match time and effort rather than chasing the same metre or calorie count.

Scaling is slightly different: it’s what you do when you can’t yet perform a movement, rather than when you’re missing the kit for it. The order of operations there is to shorten the range of motion first, then reduce the load, then slow the movement down. A Nordic curl becomes a razor curl over a shortened range. A strict pull-up becomes a band-assisted one over the full range before it becomes anything else.

If you’re unsure what to swap, message us through the app with what your gym does have and we’ll give you a substitution for your exact setup.

Mobility

The mobility section of the Stoic App delivers bespoke daily mobility practices based on your needs, if you’ve completed any of the tests. If you haven’t, the app builds a general mobility plan for you to follow daily, or you can choose an area to focus on when adding a training cycle to your calendar.

It always begins with a full-body mobility Flow: a series of movements aimed at helping your body move smoothly from position to position. Follow along with the video, and feel free to pause and repeat movements as many times as you need. After the Flow, you’ll have between 1 and 3 mobility practices to perform, with instructions on how best to perform them.

Coach's Tip: If you can’t perform a movement or flow because of a tissue or joint restriction, take your time, break the movement down, or shorten the range of motion so you can start working on it. We all start where we start. Small daily improvements add up quickly, and a month of chipping away every day will change your positions noticeably.

When to Perform Your Mobility

The honest answer: whenever you’ll actually do it. Consistency beats timing by a distance. The flows and practices take 5 to 10 minutes, and 10 minutes daily will do more for your positions than an hour of stretching once a week ever will.

That said, some slots work better than others. After training is the easiest habit to build: you’re already warm, the tissues respond well, and it doubles as your cool-down. Failing that, anchor it to the start or end of your day, somewhere it can attach to an existing routine rather than float loose in your diary waiting to be skipped.

The one slot we’d steer you away from is long static holds immediately before training. Extended static stretching has been shown to acutely reduce force output, and before a session you want to ramp the body up, not calm it down. In fairness to the research, short holds are less of a problem than gym folklore suggests; it’s the long holds that blunt performance. But the simple rule holds: keep pre-training work dynamic (the Flow, CARs, your warm-up), and save the longer holds for after training or another point in the day.

Glossary

Shorthand and technical terms you’ll see across the training cycles:

Table 3. Common shorthand used in the Stoic App.

Frequently Asked Questions

What weight should I start with in week one?

Start conservative and treat the first session as calibration. Pick a weight you’re confident will reach the top of the rep range, then adjust set by set. Log everything. By week two the guesswork is gone and you’re progressing off real data.

What if I can’t hit the bottom of the rep range?

Drop the weight for the next set and carry on. You haven’t failed anything; you’ve found your current working weight, which is exactly what the range is for. Note it in the app and beat it over the coming weeks.

My gym doesn’t have a piece of equipment. What do I do?

Use the substitution principles above: match the pattern, match the intent, and keep your substitute consistent for the whole cycle. Table 2 covers the common cases. If yours isn’t there, message us through the app.

Can I move training days around?

Yes, within reason. Keep the sessions in their programmed order where you can, and avoid stacking the two hardest days back to back. The week is structured to manage your total stress, so shuffle days rather than cramming them.

Do I have to follow the tempo exactly?

Don’t stand there counting like a metronome, but honour the intent. A 3 means a deliberate, controlled lowering; an X means fast. If the tempo collapses because the weight is too heavy, the weight is too heavy.

The session is taking longer than the time I have. What do I cut?

Cut from the end, not the start. The A and B movements carry the session’s main intent, so trim accessory volume or shave rest periods slightly before you ever touch the primary work. And don’t skip the warm-up to buy time; it’s the cheapest injury insurance you own.

Still Stuck?

Like anything - none of this is complicated once it’s been explained and understood, but small misreadings compound over a training cycle. If anything in your programme still doesn’t make sense, message us through the app and we’ll clear it up. And if you’d rather talk through your training as a whole, you can book a consultation through the site.