So a theme of the blog articles these last two weeks has been the when, where, and how often of movement variety. Now I'm really going to put together everything we've learned into a simple and cohesive package.
Metabolic and Conditioning Workouts (these are your "traditional" fat loss workouts)
This is where you can and should have the most variety.
The smart way to do variety here is to stick to the basic movement patterns: Push, pull, squat, and hip hinge (and also core and rotation!).
Within that framework, you can have a lot of variation. One day your squat can be a goblet squat. The next day your squat can be a lunge, a step up, a dumbbell front squat, a jump squat… you get the idea.
Where I see so many bootcamps and WODs and YouTube videos going wrong is that they just throw a bunch of movements together that sound "hard". There's no respect for balance, and there's no respect for what movements you should be doing on strength day and which movements you should be doing on metabolic day.
Like Jen said in her first video, you can have that balance over two days. Your circuit one day can have some of the movements, and your next circuit can have the rest. That's fine. It just takes actually looking at what you're doing for the week and being intentional about balancing it.
Your first metabolic workout of the week could be a triplet of:
- A Pressing movement
- A hip hinging movement
- Twist/Rotation/Anti-Rotation
Your second metabolic workout of the week could be a triplet of:
- Pulling movement
- Squatting movement
- Core (anti-extension) movement
Or you could do four one day and two the next. The point is to be smart about balancing it.
Strength Workouts 
This is where you should have the most structure and the least variation.
You should be following a smart program, one that someone else wrote for you.
If there is variety in the movements, it should be between a set amount of options, pre-selected. You should change when a movement doesn't feel right, or because it didn't assess well. The movement feeling bad or not working for your body is totally different from "you didn't feel like it or didn't want to."
You want to do as much quality volume (total amount of work) as possible. Not so much work that sacrifices quality. But no less than you can do either: If all of the markers of quality reps hold up, you can keep doing more sets.
- Most structure
- Least variety (structured variety)
- Limit number of sets if rep quality drops off
- Extend number of sets if rep quality holds
For Fat Loss, You Need Both Metabolic Workouts and Strength Workouts
Keep in mind that the ultimate rookie mistake is to do all metabolic conditioning, all of the time, for months on end.
When people think of fat loss workouts, the first thing they think of is always the metabolic conditioning workouts. But the leanest people are never the ones who only do conditioning workouts.
The leanest women and men are always strong women and men who do metabolic conditioning workouts. I've been saying this for years: At any given body weight, the leanest people are the strongest.
Smart fat loss programming is about finding the balance between getting stronger and doing metabolic conditioning workouts. You've got options. Here are the three ways I structure that balance with my clients:
- Two strength workouts per week, two metabolic conditioning workouts per week
- A month of strength followed by a month of conditioning
- Strength workouts followed by a short metabolic finisher
However you structure it, you want to do some of each.
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But I get tons of stuff for free that I don't recommend on the blog. And I have tons of friends who ask me to promote their stuff, that I don't recommend on the blog. I really, really do turn down 90% of the stuff I get asked to promote. Jen is good people, and this is a good program.
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In fact there are workouts from lots of your favorite trainers, including: Jen Comas Keck, Max Shank, Coach Dos, Jill Coleman, Brett Contreras, Nia Shanks, Molly Galbraith, Tony Gentilcore, Karen McDowell Smith, Patt Flynn, Wil Fleming, Josh Henkin, and Neghar Fonooni. Like, everybody!
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Enjoy! 
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