I first programmed for Joah years ago. Neither of us was thinking about it that way, but I'd gotten it into my head to try Smolov Junior for bench press, and she went along with me. The adjustments I made to the basic program were minor and intuitive – allowing more recovery from other lifts by stretching the cycle across four weeks with only three bench sessions each week, making each of the weight increases an equal percentage of the goal lift – but it was still “programming.” (The best outcome was showing her how strong she was. She went in with a goal of 170lbs and instead hit 190.)

I started doing something more like real programming for myself not long after that, having realized that the bastardized versions of Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 that I'd run for years needed more than subtle changes. I didn't touch Joah's programming again until the run-up to a local meet that became a push-pull because of her knee issues. I wrote a real, ground-up program: bench press twice a week and deadlift once with double-linear progressions, plus a day for squat rehab. It was nothing fancy, but she was very pleased with her results (220lb bench! 375lb deadlift!) and gave me a lot more credit than I gave myself.

But once her knee was healthy enough for normal training, I encouraged her to seek out online coaching. We both did, actually -- I'm still using it -- and she struggled to make it work for her body’s needs. After her victory at Nationals she asked me to again take over her programming.

I was reluctant. I try, perhaps too hard, to be aware of my limitations, and as many books, articles, podcasts, and videos as I've consumed, my practical experience is limited at best. My self-programming was fun to write, but in retrospect had major flaws, and my results have been lifts that wouldn’t exactly get me attention on Instagram. And as much as I enjoy sharing what I've learned, positions of authority make me anxious. If Joah were a total novice with nothing at stake it might not matter, but after her win at Nationals we thought she was heading to IPF Worlds, the Olympics of our weird little sport.

She badly wanted someone local, whom she trusted, who would listen to her needs, and who could respond immediately if an issue arose in training. Guess who's been watching her train the longest? Who's always at the gym with answers? Who was obsessive enough about programming stuff to have already assembled some ideas? Who loves playing with spreadsheets?

I have no regrets so far, even if a brief recurrence of Joah's knee issues made me wonder whether I could have done something to prevent them. We can disagree and collaborate; I don't need to order her around. Most importantly, Joah has been happy with the results. For example, being able to decide in the middle of a workout that she needs to deload and having only to walk a few steps to ask how to do that takes off a lot of stress. Some of my decisions yielded benefits almost immediately, and she feels good about the direction she’s headed.

I'm excited to see her progress and to know that I played a role in getting her there. She has other sources for help with her lifting form, for injury treatment, for nutrition advice, and for game-day handling. I’ve already lost some sleep over my decisions, and when she steps on the platform I'll probably be sick with worry, but to the extent there's any relief it's in knowing that I'm merely part of the team that's helping her reach competition in the best possible condition.