That’s It!
That’s everything you need to know about the exercise selection for this block. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a question onto the forum. Other than that, good luck and happy training, as always :)
Cheers,
Block Guide
5 Oct 2026 – 3 Jan 2027
The thinking behind the programming
We seem to be a curious bunch here in The Training Club.
So, going forward, I’m going to create a document outlining the “why” behind the exercise selection so you can understand exactly what we’re training and how it applies to you and the block theme.
You don’t have to read this. It’s purely optional. But if you want to dive deeper, this is the place to do it.
Let’s go!
The Training Club now has four distinct training phases through the year, broken down into four blocks of three months.
Each block has a theme that aims to bridge “life” goals and performance needs in a way that works with your schedule.
Below is a snapshot of what that year will look like.
Restore posture and build positional strength
5 Oct 2026 – 3 Jan 2027
Lay the foundations
4 Jan – 4 Apr 2027
Broaden the base
5 Apr – 4 Jul 2027
Add durability
5 Jul – 3 Oct 2027
4 Oct 2027 – 2 Jan 2028
Realign exists to help you build strength and command in the positions you work in, whilst undoing the inevitable “habitual slide” that creeps in through a busy year of gigging and playing your instrument.
The aim of the block is to prepare the body for the Build phase, starting in January, so you can get off to the best possible start in 2027.
As normal, this 13 week block is split into 2 rotations of 6 weeks, and a deload week through the final week.
The final two weeks fall over Christmas, so you may find that you want to deload over the Christmas week to take the pressure off your training so you can enjoy the festive season, then ramp back up for the final week. To do this, simply swap your sessions by dragging and dropping to rearrange the last two weeks.
There is flexibility built into the programming, and you can take full advantage of that to make the training calendar suit your needs.
Posture is a skill of the nervous system.
It isn’t static. It’s a dynamic home base.
It’s about training your body to know how much baseline “electrical signal” to send to the muscles in your body so it can self-balance itself. Once it can do that, each joint can work as it was originally intended, which makes life a whole lot easier.
To help restore balance and realign your body, we’re working on these five areas, plus a balance of movements that cover the lesser trained positions whilst working both sides of the body evenly:
As always, this is a focus on building strength, so the tempos we are using combine these outcomes whilst progressing your strength gains.
Each exercise has been carefully designed to isolate the specific qualities we are looking to train, so you don’t have to think too much about these qualities during the sessions.
You’ve got enough to think about as it is. You shouldn’t have to hold all of that information too. But, if you’re curious, this article exists to help you understand why you’re doing things in the way you are.
If you’re using a narrow base, that base takes away the thing you would otherwise brace against, so you cannot cheat the movement even if you want to. Rather than me telling you not to do something, the setup makes it impossible.
By building this deep level of positional awareness, you’ll be hitting the Build phase in January in the best possible way and with the best chances of doing exactly what that block is all about (Building!) without the worry of training dysfunction on top of dysfunction.
That’s a super common trait for people who don’t have proper guidance in their training, by the way!
If you’d like to understand the logic behind why you’re doing each exercise, what the aim is with it, and how it will help you, here’s a quick rundown to get you up to speed.
They’re grouped the way you’ll meet them in the app. Exercises that share a letter are supersetted, so you alternate between the two and rest after the pair.
A unilateral lower body exercise that is brutally effective at building strength and exposing weaknesses. It also has an increased balance demand, and adds some extra focus to stretching the hip flexors: a chronically tight muscle for most people that stops us standing up fully straight, and can lead to low back pain as the spine overextends to make up the difference.
As musicians, we don’t fail posture wise by lack of strength. We fail by endurance. This exercise trains the mid-back to hold the shoulder blades in place while they work in an asymmetrical holding and pulling pattern.
The job of the core is to transfer energy from the lower body to the upper, and vice versa. And, whether you realise it or not, you’re constantly doing this when you’re playing your instrument. You’re doing it every time you move gear, too. Putting a case on a shelf, a bag in an overhead locker, anything into a van. This exercise trains that quality explicitly through a combined hinge/press movement, which highlights and fixes energy leaks in the chain.
As musicians, we are often in a single position, rotated one way more than the others for hours on end, and the compensation lies in your lower back turning instead of the mid-back. The half-kneeling base pins the pelvis and low back and teaches you to rotate with proper mechanics through an often overlooked line of focus.
One leg holds a contraction, working the hip flexor. The other leg extends away as a long lever, pulling the pelvis forward. So both legs are trying to arch your lower back at once: the moving leg by tipping the pelvis forward, and the holding leg because the hip flexor runs from your lumbar spine to your thigh, so as it holds the leg up it pulls your lower spine towards that thigh and your back off the floor.
When you add the arm action, you’re fighting your ribcage trying to tip up, which creates the arch from the other end.
Every time you move a leg while your upper body stays still, the question is not always the leg’s strength. It’s whether your pelvis stays still while the leg moves.
Getting low and sideways and back up again. This movement gives you a feeling of agility and dexterity when you can perform it well. Those who don’t train it actively lose the ability to move through this range, which means they start to call on the back for support, which exposes them to injury risk.
As a musician, everything happens in front of the body, so the back gets asked for very little, and this movement is focused on building that capacity back up. Using straps that aren’t fixed allows the shoulder blade to move properly through its full range and recruits nearby muscles for support and stabilisation, which carries over into life and performance.
The back of the leg has to work at the hip and the knee at the same time, which is a movement not many exercises can train at once. The hips have to stay up as the legs get longer, so the position degrades visibly the moment the hamstrings stop keeping up, which gives you an objective measure of your capacity here.
This is the quality that catches you when you step down off a riser or take a stair heavier than you meant to, to give you a couple of examples of how it transfers.
This is less of a strict overhead press, and more similar to a high incline press in terms of the specific angle you’re working in. But here, one side holds a position while the other side produces force.
There are two fail points here: the press, and the hold. The trick is to find the middle ground and train the capacity in tandem. Super useful for musicians because of the asymmetric demand.
Although this is a core move on paper, it’s more of a full body move in practice. The side plank trains you to resist a side bend, which is great for any seated musician. Think about how much of your life happens on one side: cases, bags, stands, always the same shoulder. The row and the press then ask that same side to hold while you pull and push above it.
Holding something above head height while the base underneath you moves. This has a big impact on your overall balance and ability to stabilise dynamically whilst organising your body through the demand.
Playing an instrument closes the shoulder down and forward, which causes inefficiencies and can also lead to injury. This movement trains the back and rotator cuff, specifically, which is the main group of muscles you need to train to reduce that “forward-rounded” posture.
Picking things up. This is the most-used movement of the working day and the most commonly done badly. Hinging at the hip rather than bending at the back is a pattern, and once you own it you’ll find a big carry over to day to day life.
Pushing with one arm while the trunk stops you turning towards the load. The parallel stance takes away the base you’d normally brace against, so the trunk limits the set rather than the chest. You can’t move much weight in this stance, and that’s the point.
The whole set is a fight against rotation, and the answer likely lies in your feet. Screwing the feet down will help give you a more stable base and to organise the line of tension through your hips better.
Apart from the obvious focus on the shoulders, a weight held out to one side pulls you sideways, and the split stance takes away the wide base you’d normally resist that with. The lower body isometric hold also adds extra bang for your buck with some endurance work.
In the gym version the additional isometric hold in the non-working arm adds an endurance component to the main lift that forces you to really own those lighter weights. On the road the clenched fist does the same job, creating a strong line of tension to brace against.
That’s everything you need to know about the exercise selection for this block. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a question onto the forum. Other than that, good luck and happy training, as always :)
Cheers,