Balancing Structure & Variance in Gym or Affiliate Programming
A common struggle for affiliate owners and gym programmers is balancing structure with variance. While everyone in the CrossFit world has their own take on “constant variation”, a results-driven programme still needs a degree of structure to help members get fitter, stronger, and better.
At the same time, sessions should remain engaging and offer some novelty. In this post, I’ll outline how to build a programme that’s both structured and varied, suitable for group classes or CrossFit affiliates.
I’ve worked at many different CrossFit gyms and done extensive remote programming for gyms, and this is the approach I’ve developed over time.
Each day should include a strength or skill component at the start, followed by a conditioning piece. If one part is heavy or technical, the other should be lighter and simpler to balance the session. While themed days can be useful, this balance helps keep the energy high throughout.
The first step in programming is establishing static days—sessions that follow a consistent pattern each week, such as team workouts on weekends or heavy lifting on Mondays. These allow you to work with the natural flow of the week—e.g. placing tougher strength sessions after a rest day when people are fresher, rather than later in the week when fatigue might set in.
Side note: there will be times when it makes sense to break these loose rules. The ideas in this post are intended as a guide, not a rigid formula.
Next, you’ll want to include static progressions—training pieces that stay consistent week to week. This could be linear strength work, building volume in an EMOM, or repeating a metcon with the same structure, duration, and movements.
These progressions offer members a clear path for short-term improvement through repeated exposure. Think of a four-week cycle aimed at improving a 5RM back squat or refining a specific gymnastics skill. While effective, these progressions tend to plateau quickly, so they’re best kept short.
I recommend including 2–3 static progressions per training phase (typically 4–6 weeks). Often, these cover strength, skill, and conditioning—for example, focusing on the clean, handstand push-up, and a benchmark like Helen.
Alongside these, you’ll also want to add more varied progressions. These are looser in structure and movement selection, allowing for flexible, theme-based programming. For example, a progression might centre around touch-and-go barbell cycling or upper-body push–pull accessory work. Most accessory work I programme tends to fall into this category.
Variation comes from changing movements, formats, or both. A progression focused on upper-body pushing could feature wall walk EMOMs one week, followed by a 5-minute burpee AMRAP the next. You might vary both the movement and format, or just one to keep things structured yet fresh.
These progressions can run much longer than static ones due to their variability, giving you a longer runway for progress. Again, 2–3 of these per training phase tends to work well.
Once you have these three elements established (static days, static progressions, and varied progressions), you have your main ingredients. Now you just need to know how to cook them all together – and when to do what. Here are a couple of heuristics that I’ve found useful:
Want to see this broken down with examples? Check out the full video on my YouTube channel where I explain exactly how to apply this step-by-step.
Avoid bodybuilding-style body part splits and focus more on a theme-based split. Focusing on body parts pigeonholes you too much and makes putting the programme together difficult. You can have days more focused on weightlifting, gymnastics, conditioning, and maybe a day that is more open (dare I say random). By focusing on one of these, you will generally have weightlifting days that are more lower-body taxing and gymnastics days that are more taxing for the upper body.
Use staggered days for your progressions. Rather than always placing the same progression on the same day each week, shift it forward—e.g. if a clean progression lands on a Monday in week one, move it to Tuesday in week two. This keeps things varied for members who train 1–3 times per week.
So now we have everything set, let’s look at the step-by-step plan for building out the programme:
Plot the static days for the month (same every week)
Set where the static progressions go for the month – 1–3 for about 4–6 exposures
Include the varied progressions – 1–3 for a more open-ended timeline
Start to fill in the gaps with other strength, skill, conditioning work, and finishers
Check for overlap (avoid doubling up on movement patterns in consecutive days or including too much of one thing)
Cross-check with the previous week, avoiding very similar workouts or styles
Scan the coming week to check if there are any potential overlaps or conflicts in the programme that can be easily avoided and planned around
Balancing Structure & Variance in Gym or Affiliate Programming
A common struggle for affiliate owners and gym programmers is balancing structure with variance. While everyone in the CrossFit world has their own take on “constant variation”, a results-driven programme still needs a degree of structure to help members get fitter, stronger, and better.
At the same time, sessions should remain engaging and offer some novelty. In this post, I’ll outline how to build a programme that’s both structured and varied, suitable for group classes or CrossFit affiliates.
I’ve worked at many different CrossFit gyms and done extensive remote programming for gyms, and this is the approach I’ve developed over time.
Each day should include a strength or skill component at the start, followed by a conditioning piece. If one part is heavy or technical, the other should be lighter and simpler to balance the session. While themed days can be useful, this balance helps keep the energy high throughout.
The first step in programming is establishing static days—sessions that follow a consistent pattern each week, such as team workouts on weekends or heavy lifting on Mondays. These allow you to work with the natural flow of the week—e.g. placing tougher strength sessions after a rest day when people are fresher, rather than later in the week when fatigue might set in.
Side note: there will be times when it makes sense to break these loose rules. The ideas in this post are intended as a guide, not a rigid formula.
Next, you’ll want to include static progressions—training pieces that stay consistent week to week. This could be linear strength work, building volume in an EMOM, or repeating a metcon with the same structure, duration, and movements.
These progressions offer members a clear path for short-term improvement through repeated exposure. Think of a four-week cycle aimed at improving a 5RM back squat or refining a specific gymnastics skill. While effective, these progressions tend to plateau quickly, so they’re best kept short.
I recommend including 2–3 static progressions per training phase (typically 4–6 weeks). Often, these cover strength, skill, and conditioning—for example, focusing on the clean, handstand push-up, and a benchmark like Helen.
Alongside these, you’ll also want to add more varied progressions. These are looser in structure and movement selection, allowing for flexible, theme-based programming. For example, a progression might centre around touch-and-go barbell cycling or upper-body push–pull accessory work. Most accessory work I programme tends to fall into this category.
Variation comes from changing movements, formats, or both. A progression focused on upper-body pushing could feature wall walk EMOMs one week, followed by a 5-minute burpee AMRAP the next. You might vary both the movement and format, or just one to keep things structured yet fresh.
These progressions can run much longer than static ones due to their variability, giving you a longer runway for progress. Again, 2–3 of these per training phase tends to work well.
Once you have these three elements established (static days, static progressions, and varied progressions), you have your main ingredients. Now you just need to know how to cook them all together – and when to do what. Here are a couple of heuristics that I’ve found useful:
Want to see this broken down with examples? Check out the full video on my YouTube channel where I explain exactly how to apply this step-by-step.
Avoid bodybuilding-style body part splits and focus more on a theme-based split. Focusing on body parts pigeonholes you too much and makes putting the programme together difficult. You can have days more focused on weightlifting, gymnastics, conditioning, and maybe a day that is more open (dare I say random). By focusing on one of these, you will generally have weightlifting days that are more lower-body taxing and gymnastics days that are more taxing for the upper body.
Use staggered days for your progressions. Rather than always placing the same progression on the same day each week, shift it forward—e.g. if a clean progression lands on a Monday in week one, move it to Tuesday in week two. This keeps things varied for members who train 1–3 times per week.
So now we have everything set, let’s look at the step-by-step plan for building out the programme:
Plot the static days for the month (same every week)
Set where the static progressions go for the month – 1–3 for about 4–6 exposures
Include the varied progressions – 1–3 for a more open-ended timeline
Start to fill in the gaps with other strength, skill, conditioning work, and finishers
Check for overlap (avoid doubling up on movement patterns in consecutive days or including too much of one thing)
Cross-check with the previous week, avoiding very similar workouts or styles
Scan the coming week to check if there are any potential overlaps or conflicts in the programme that can be easily avoided and planned around