The Method Behind the Madness: How We Program at Lumos
Most people don’t think about how the workouts get made. You show up, see what’s on the board, take a deep breath, and get to work. But behind every rep, every rest interval, and every weird thing we ask you to do with a kettlebell, there’s a plan.
At Lumos, we write our training in 6-week cycles. That means when you train here, you’re not just doing “whatever workout sounds hard today.” You’re following a carefully structured path—one that balances strength, skill, and conditioning, with room for play and growth. It’s not always linear. But it’s always intentional.
Training, Not Just Exercise
We believe in the difference between training and just exercising. Training implies progress. A purpose. A way to measure whether something is working.
Each 6-week block at Lumos has a theme. Maybe we’re building to a heavy front squat. Maybe we’re working on gymnastics progressions. Maybe we’re pushing aerobic capacity or dialing in pacing. Usually, it’s a blend of all three. Within that cycle, you’ll see familiar movements return with a little more intensity or complexity, and new challenges introduced at the right time.
When the cycle wraps, we don’t just dive into the next one. We take a breath.
Transition Week: The Secret Sauce
In between cycles, we program a Transition Week. This is where we shift gears—drop the volume, play with movements we haven’t seen in a while, and give the nervous system a minute to breathe. Zercher squats, skin-the-cat drills, longer grinders—things that don’t always fit cleanly into progressive strength templates but are still valuable (and often, just plain fun).
We’ll also throw in some light pre- and post-testing. Not necessarily a max-out event, but a chance to see how the last six weeks landed. Maybe a benchmark you’ve seen before. Maybe a twist on one. Maybe just realizing that movement you used to dread now feels manageable.
Four Coaches, One Brain
Our programming doesn’t come from a faceless app or a big-name spreadsheet. It comes from us—your actual coaches. We rotate programming duties between the four of us, so each cycle has a lead architect. That means you’ll see different styles and emphases over time—tempo work, hybrid intervals, barbell progressions, unilateral strength, whatever lights each of us up.
We probably agree on 90% of programming philosophy. That last 10%? That’s where the real magic lives. We all care about different things, and that variety keeps the programming fresh and well-rounded.
Every Monday, we sit down as a team to review the next week of workouts. We double-check logistics, scaling, flow, and how each session fits into the bigger picture. We make sure it’s something we’d want to do, and something you can grow from. Four sets of eyes, one shared goal.
Not All Workouts Are Created Equal
There are a lot of gyms out there that just throw together a sweaty playlist of movements. It’s fine, in the same way that eating a frozen burrito for dinner is fine. It gets the job done, sort of. But it’s definitely not moving you toward anything.
Other gyms outsource their programming to someone who’s never met you, never coached in your space, and doesn’t know if the pull-up rig is always jammed up at 5:30 p.m. Some of those programs are well-designed. But they aren’t for you.
Our approach is different. It’s handcrafted, hyper-local, and constantly evolving. Because it has to be. You change, the gym changes, the community changes. So the program does too.
That’s the whole point: to build something that grows with you.
So the next time you walk in and see a workout that feels suspiciously dialed in—like it was made just for you—that’s because it kind of was.
Performance, Progress, Pillars
We’ve also evolved how we present options within workouts. You might remember when we had two clear tracks: Performance and Vitality. Performance was built for those chasing strength or high-skill CrossFit elements, while Vitality leaned more into sustainable movement and longevity. It worked, for a while—but over time, it started to feel limiting. So we’re experimenting with a new structure. (We’re always tinkering!)
Now, we offer Performance, Progress, and Pillars—a new framework designed to help you see where you’re going, understand what to work on next, and build your own path. Performance is still the highest skill expression of a workout. Progress is the developmental route—scaled but intentional. Pillars focuses on foundational movement and consistency.
The best part? You can mix and match across tracks. Need to go heavy on the barbell but keep gymnastics simple? Cool. Want to use Progress to build your double-unders while sticking with Pillars for the lifting? Do it. This new system makes every workout more flexible, more personalized, and more empowering. It’s not about fitting into a box. It’s about building your own.
