How I structure a 60-minute session

Whether it is an in-person hour in Apollo Beach or a session I have written for someone training on her own, the shape of the hour is the same. I did not invent this structure, but I have coached it enough times that I trust it, and I do not deviate from it just to keep things "interesting."

This is not five minutes on a bike. It is joints moving through range, the muscles you are about to load getting turned on, and one or two drills specific to that day's main lift. If today is hip thrusts, you are doing glute bridges and band walks first. If today is a press, your shoulders and upper back are moving before a single plate goes on the bar.

Every session has one lift that matters most that day: a squat, a hinge, a press, a pull. This is where the heaviest work happens, where I am watching bar path and bracing the closest, and where progress actually gets made. Everything else in the hour supports this lift, not the other way around.

I would rather someone leave with three clean, heavy sets of a hip thrust than ten exercises done at half attention. Fatigue is not the goal. A stronger, better-coached rep is the goal.

Two or three exercises here, chosen to either build the muscles that support the main lift or address something specific to you: a weak side, a stiff hip, a knee that has been cranky. This is also where most of the volume for shape work lives, glutes especially, because accessories are where you can safely add sets without wrecking recovery for the next session.

A short conditioning piece, a core circuit, or sometimes nothing at all if the main lift and accessories already asked enough of you that day. I would rather end a session with you able to walk out and live the rest of your day than crawl to your car because I chased a feeling of being wrecked.

This exact structure is what you are training inside every one of my /programs, and it is what I build live, one on one, in /coaching. The exercises change with your goal and your stage, pregnant, postpartum, or just building strength, but the shape of the hour does not, because it works.