A programme is not a list of exercises. It is a promise about someone's week — and most programmes break that promise in the first fortnight, not because the sets were wrong but because nobody designed for the client's actual life.
This checklist is the pre-flight pass we use. Ten steps, in order.
Before you build
1. Write the constraint, not the goal. "Lose 8 kg" is a goal. "Two 45-minute sessions at home before 7am, one barbell, no floor work" is the constraint the programme must satisfy. Design against constraints; goals take care of themselves.
2. Pick the weekly skeleton first. How many sessions, how long, which days are realistic on their worst week? A plan for their best week fails by definition.
Building the sessions
3. One main lift per session, loaded progressively. Everything else is support. If you cannot name which exercise the session exists to progress, cut exercises until you can.
4. Cap novelty per week. New exercises cost the client attention and cost you form-checking video. One or two new movements a week is plenty; the rest should be familiar patterns with new numbers.
5. Prescribe rest like you prescribe load. "3×10" without rest is half a prescription. 90 seconds vs 3 minutes changes what those ten reps mean.
6. Write the regression next to the exercise. When travel kills the gym access, the client needs the swap decided already — not a silence while they wait for your reply from the airport.
Before you assign
7. Re-read it as the client. Would they know, from the screen alone, exactly what to do in set two? Rest? Tempo? What "leave two in the tank" means? If any set requires memory or guesswork, fix it now.
8. Assign with a date, then check delivery. The assignment landed on their phone, the video demos play, the notifications fire. A programme that arrives broken is indistinguishable from no programme.
9. Decide the check-in question in advance. "How did it go?" gets "good". "Which set felt heaviest?" gets information. Attach the question to the assignment.
10. Book the review. Two weeks out, fifteen minutes: look at adherence, adjust, reassign. Programmes without a scheduled review drift; so do clients.
Every step above maps to a NetFit feature — templates with per-set prescriptions and rests, regressions written into notes, assignment dates, completion tracking back to your dashboard. Browse the actual screens or run the demo studio.