I don't have any background in personal training, and I'm definitely not certified, but I suppose I have a mind for long duree algorithmic systems, so programming makes sense to me on a conceptual level. Admittedly, I don't have the physiological know-how of a certified trainer, so I have to rely upon my experience as a participant and observer to talk about the biomechanics of a given lift.
So, yes, I'm mostly self-taught. Here's what I did: a couple of years ago, I started reading the popular training methodologies, and I eventually settled on Westside as the one I most favored. I read all of Louie's articles, followed by the Book of Methods, followed by his manuals. I watched every youtube video and seminar from him and his gym. I then read some of the old Soviet texts, which are part of the source material for the conjugate method. Later, I started reading old articles from EliteFTS and T-Nation. Finally, I would find the logs of lifters who I thought were intriguing, and I'd study their training.
Now, this occurred over a period of a couple of years, and it hasn't been as exhaustive as I'm presenting it; there are still many, many gaps in my knowledge.
I let training percentages guide the general trajectory of my training, but I train in a quasi-intuitive manner. I used to be more of a "listen to my body" trainee, but I have made better, more consistent progress by structuring my training more. I'm a believer in using training percentages in a baseline, but in not forgetting that an absolute max is different from a present-day max, and that training percentages should adhere to the later, not the former. So, if I'm feeling poorly, I'll train down; if I'm feeling great, I might push my percentages up. A few months ago, I started reading about Mike Tuchscherer's Reactive Training Systems, and one thing I took away from his approach was to keep a mental log of my rate of perceived exertion. It's something I'm always conscious of, even if it's not something I log, and it dictates how I handle all of my training.
Again, I have something of a mind for "long duree" algorithmic systems; I have a general sense of the rotation and periodization of my special exercises, even if it isn't pre-planned. I typically split the first half of my heavy training sessions between a main exercise (squat, bench press, and deadlift) and a main exercise variant (squat, bench press, and deadlift variant), and I train the former in a very systematic fashion, adhering to training percentages and deviating from them only when necessary, and I train the latter in a very intuitive fashion, doing what I feel best doing on that day. The balance, I find, works for me. My training sessions normally follow a SPP/GSPP/GPP (Specific/General-Specific/General) trajectory, which I got a year or so ago from Al Caslow's training log.
Anyway, this is another question that deserves a very long answer, so I'll just cut myself off here; if you want to know more, feel free to ask.
