Every month we read what coaches on QuickCoach actually assign, group every spelling of the same movement together, and publish the result on what coaches program. That page always shows the latest month. It doesn't show what moved. So we lined the August 2026 read up against September's, movement by movement, to see how coaches' programming trends shifted as the new month's blocks started.
The headline: the staples didn't budge, but September leaned heavier and more core-focused, and carries got rarer.
The short answer
The top four stayed put: row, Romanian deadlift, lat pulldown and bench press. Below them, big lifts and core work rose. The deadlift reached 15.9% of clients (up 3.1 points), the dead bug 18.2% (up 2.7) and the pull-up 11.0% (up 1.9). Core grew from 10.8% to 11.9% of assigned exercises, while carries slipped from 1.0% to 0.8%.
What this is, in one paragraph
We compare two monthly reads of programming on QuickCoach, a platform used by more than 40,000 coaches and fitness businesses. August 2026 covered 204,470 verified assigned exercises grouped into 3,565 movements. September 2026 covered 229,713 grouped into 4,144. Movement figures are the share of clients assigned each movement at least once that month. Changes are in percentage points. The full method, and what one month can and can't tell you, is at the foot of the page.
Which exercises did coaches program more in September?
The climbers read like the opening weeks of a strength block. The conventional deadlift gained the most, reaching 15.9% of clients against 12.8% in August and moving from 28th to 22nd. The pull-up gained 1.9 points to 11.0% and the back squat 1.5 points to 10.9%. When coaches start a new block, the heavy bilateral lifts tend to come back in, and September's numbers fit that.
Biggest climbers, August to September 2026
Change in share of clients assigned the movement at least once, percentage points
Movements from the top 50, plus the Copenhagen plank from the long tail. Every spelling of each movement is grouped together.
The second cluster is core and trunk control. The dead bug climbed 2.7 points to 18.2%, overtaking the plank. The Pallof press rose 1.7 points to 13.1%, and the Copenhagen plank, an adductor drill most gym-goers have never heard of, went from 4.4% to 5.8%. These are anti-extension, anti-rotation and groin drills: the low-load work coaches use to keep clients healthy enough to keep lifting.
Which exercises did coaches program less?
The fallers were mostly accessories and variations. The incline bench press dropped the most, from 17.6% to 14.7% of clients, while the flat bench press rose a point. The split squat, triceps pushdown, hammer curl and goblet squat each lost a point or so. None of these fell out of favour. They gave up a little room to the heavier lifts.
Biggest fallers, August to September 2026
Change in share of clients assigned the movement at least once, percentage points
Movements from the top 50. A fall of one point means about one client in a hundred fewer was assigned the movement.
One faller isn't what it looks like. The overhead press lost 1.3 points while the shoulder press gained 1.9 and jumped from 16th to 9th. Coaches use both names for the same movement, and our naming report found them logged almost equally often under separate labels. Part of this swap is coaches renaming, not reprogramming. It's a good example of why we explain exercise abbreviations and name variations before reading too much into any single row.
Did the top of the list change?
Barely, which is the point. The four most-programmed movements held their places in both months and each gained about a point. The only swap in the top five was the lateral raise overtaking the hip thrust.
| Movement | Sep rank | August | September | Change (pts) | Rank move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Row | 1 | 56.8% | 57.7% | +0.9 | same |
| Romanian Deadlift | 2 | 37.2% | 37.5% | +0.3 | same |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 | 35.9% | 36.8% | +0.9 | same |
| Bench Press | 4 | 31.2% | 32.2% | +1.0 | same |
| Lateral Raise | 5 | 25.2% | 26.2% | +1.0 | up 1 |
| Hip Thrust | 6 | 25.4% | 24.5% | −0.9 | down 1 |
| Leg Extension | 7 | 24.0% | 23.6% | −0.4 | same |
| Squat | 8 | 22.7% | 22.6% | −0.1 | same |
| Shoulder Press | 9 | 19.1% | 21.0% | +1.9 | up 7 |
| Push-Up | 10 | 21.8% | 20.9% | −0.9 | down 1 |
| Goblet Squat | 11 | 21.7% | 20.6% | −1.1 | down 1 |
| Leg Press | 12 | 20.3% | 19.5% | −0.8 | same |
| Overhead Press | 13 | 20.7% | 19.4% | −1.3 | down 2 |
| Glute Bridge | 14 | 19.7% | 19.1% | −0.6 | down 1 |
| Calf Raise | 15 | 19.6% | 19.0% | −0.6 | down 1 |
Share of clients assigned the movement at least once in the month. September's full top 50 is on what coaches program.
A stable top is a healthy sign. Coaches don't reinvent the skeleton of a program every month, and they shouldn't. The movement that tops the list in both months, a row of some kind, reached 57.7% of clients in September. The point-in-time most-programmed exercises report found the same order on a share-of-programs basis earlier in the year.
How did the split across movement patterns change?
Group movements by pattern and only one thing moved by more than half a point: core. Its share of assigned exercises rose from 10.8% to 11.9%, consistent with the dead bug and Pallof press climbing. Pull and push stayed level with each other, mobility held at 14% and hinge eased slightly despite the deadlift's climb, because the Romanian deadlift and back extension barely moved.
| Pattern | August | September | Change (pts) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pull | 17.8% | 17.7% | −0.1 |
| Push | 17.1% | 17.0% | −0.1 |
| Mobility / warm-up | 14.0% | 13.9% | −0.1 |
| Core | 10.8% | 11.9% | +1.1 |
| Hinge / hip | 10.1% | 9.8% | −0.3 |
| Squat / knee | 7.7% | 7.7% | 0.0 |
| Lunge | 5.1% | 5.0% | −0.1 |
| Conditioning | 4.8% | 4.7% | −0.1 |
| Carry | 1.0% | 0.8% | −0.2 |
Share of assigned exercises that could be classified to a pattern, on a 90th-percentile trimmed set so a few very high-volume accounts can't skew it.
Carries are the quiet story. They were already the least-programmed pattern in August at 1.0%, and they slipped to 0.8%. The farmer's carry fell from 8.2% to 7.3% of clients, and two long-tail variations fell harder: the overhead carry from 2.0% to 0.8% and the waiter carry from 1.6% to 0.4%. Our uncommon exercises report found that coaches who program carries tend to use them deliberately. In September, fewer did.
Did the equipment mix change?
Slightly, and in the same direction as the lifts. The barbell's share rose from 3.8% to 4.2% of assigned exercises, while bodyweight, band and cable work each gave up a little. The biggest move was the generic slice, entries like "squat" or "row" that don't name an implement, which grew from 28.8% to 30.4%. That's partly a bigger sample with more coaches writing short names.
| Equipment named | August | September | Change (pts) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unspecified / generic | 28.8% | 30.4% | +1.6 |
| Bodyweight | 21.4% | 20.6% | −0.8 |
| Machine | 13.7% | 13.2% | −0.5 |
| Dumbbell | 11.6% | 11.6% | 0.0 |
| Cable | 6.5% | 6.0% | −0.5 |
| Band | 4.8% | 4.5% | −0.3 |
| Barbell | 3.8% | 4.2% | +0.4 |
| Kettlebell | 1.4% | 1.5% | +0.1 |
Share of assigned exercises where the implement could be inferred from the name. Specialist kit makes up the remainder. Fuller numbers are in what equipment online coaches program.
What happened in the long tail?
The long tail kept growing. September's read grouped assigned exercises into 4,144 distinct movements, up from 3,565, a 16% rise against a 12% rise in volume. Some of that is a bigger sample. Some is coaches reaching further for specific drills. Roughly 42% of assigned work still came from outside the 100 most common movements, about the same as August.
The standout was the Copenhagen plank. It reached 221 clients in September against 153 in August, and climbed to 60th among all movements, level with the kettlebell swing on client reach. Shoulder external rotation rose from 2.4% to 2.9% of clients. The reverse Nordic curl, a quad-focused cousin of the Nordic, reached 2.0%. Meanwhile some strength variations eased: the gorilla row went from 2.3% to 1.7%, the Zottman curl from 1.9% to 1.3% and the sled drag from 1.7% to 1.3%.
Are coaches naming exercises more consistently?
No, and with more coaches writing more programs, you wouldn't expect it. In August, 1,035 movements appeared under more than one spelling, 12,070 spellings in all. In September it was 1,175 movements and 14,129 spellings. The row went from 630 spellings to 770. Coaches typed 26,661 distinct exercise names in September, against 25,900 in August, and in both months about 60% of those names were used for a single client.
That isn't sloppiness. Most of the variety is useful detail, like side, grip, tempo or a regression written into the name. But it's also the hidden cost of typing programs by hand: a name written fresh each time loses its demo video and its history. Saving each exercise once in a library, then building programs from templates, keeps the name, the video and the record attached.
What should coaches take from one month of change?
Treat it as a prompt to check your own programs, not a trend to chase. Three questions are worth asking:
- Is your core work deliberate? Coaches added anti-extension and anti-rotation drills in September. If every client's core slot is a plank, a dead bug or Pallof press is an easy, low-load swap.
- Where did the carries go? Carries were under-programmed in August and fell further. A farmer's or suitcase carry at the end of a session costs two minutes and builds grip and trunk strength that transfers everywhere.
- Is the change seasonal for you? September is a common block start in both hemispheres, back-to-routine in the north and spring in the south. Our look at the seasonality of online coaching covers when demand peaks across the year.
Methodology and limitations
How we got these numbers
Source. Two monthly reads of programming on QuickCoach, a platform used by more than 40,000 coaches and fitness businesses worldwide: 204,470 verified assigned exercises in August 2026 and 229,713 in September 2026. Months run on Australian Eastern Standard Time. No individual coach, client or plan is identifiable in anything published here.
Definitions. Exercise names are free text. Every spelling, abbreviation and equipment variation of the same movement was grouped into one canonical movement before counting: 3,565 movements in August and 4,144 in September. Movement figures are the share of clients assigned each movement at least once in the month. Pattern and equipment shares are of the assigned exercises that could be classified, on a 90th-percentile trimmed set (201,022 entries in September), so a few unusually high-volume accounts can't skew them.
Like for like. Every August figure here is the one we published from the August read on what coaches program and in the uncommon exercises report, compared with the same measure for September. The long-tail share is approximate in both months because the August figure used the classified subset and September's the trimmed set.
Limits. One month to the next is a short window. The group of coaches and clients changes from month to month, more programs were assigned in September, and grouping improves as we see more spellings. A movement can rise because a few coaches with large rosters started a block. Read changes of under a point as noise. Figures are rounded.
Privacy. Everything is aggregated. No personal data, client information or individual plan is exposed.
Frequently asked questions
What changed in what coaches programmed in September 2026?
Heavier compound lifts and core work rose. Compared with August, the share of clients assigned a deadlift rose 3.1 points to 15.9%, the dead bug 2.7 points to 18.2%, and pull-ups and shoulder presses 1.9 points each. Carries fell, from 1.0% to 0.8% of assigned exercises.
Is the row still the most-programmed exercise?
Yes. A row of some kind reached 57.7% of clients in September 2026, up from 56.8% in August, and it remains well ahead of the Romanian deadlift (37.5%), lat pulldown (36.8%) and bench press (32.2%). The top four were the same in both months.
Which exercises fell in September?
The incline bench press dropped most, from 17.6% to 14.7% of clients. The split squat, triceps pushdown, overhead press, hammer curl, goblet squat and leg curl each fell by about one to two points. Some of the overhead press drop is a naming shift towards shoulder press.
Are uncommon exercises like the Copenhagen plank growing?
The Copenhagen plank is. It reached 5.8% of clients in September, up from 4.4% in August, and climbed to 60th among all 4,144 movements. Loaded carry variations went the other way: the overhead carry fell from 2.0% to 0.8% of clients.
Is one month of change a trend?
Not on its own. A month-on-month shift can come from new coaches joining, new training blocks starting or a bigger sample. We treat these as signals to watch and will compare each new month on the living what coaches program page.
Published October 2026, comparing the August and September 2026 reads. The latest month always lives on what coaches program, and we'll compare each new month as it lands. Questions about the data? Reach us at support@quickcoach.fit.
