Fitness doesn’t have to be complicated, and like many things in life if you’re not exactly sure what to do you will eventually get results if you just start moving, work your tail off, and always be looking for ways to improve. Hard work pays off.
Of course that is a lot less efficient than learning from other people’s mistakes and following a well-designed program tailored specifically for you, your body, your schedule, and your goals. So I’m going to give you a step-by-step guide to creating a program for yourself that makes sense, keeps you safe, and is guaranteed to get you to your goals.
#1 – SET GOALS
Speaking of goals, setting them absolutely HAS to be step number one because they will guide all of our other decisions. In order for a desire to be a goal it has to be specific and measurable. How do we know when we’ve arrived if we aren’t aiming for something specific? “I want to get stronger” is not a goal. “I want to lose fat” is not a goal. “I want to squat 300 pounds” or “I want to have 10% body fat” – THOSE are goals.
I’m a big advocate of setting performance-based goals. They are more easily measured and trackable than something like body fat percentage. They demonstrate your progress in a more linear way and can keep you motivated while the aesthetic changes are slowly coming to fruition. Frankly, they just make you a more useful human being in general.
Focusing on the scale makes every day you don’t see changes frustrating and painful, and that will happen a lot because fat loss is not a linear process. Obsessing over the scale is discouraging and has been responsible for more than fat loss failure.
But if you focus on performance in the gym and eat to support that, the aesthetic results will follow. Don’t you think you’d look a little different if you added 100 pounds to your deadlift and could run a 6-minute mile?
In the end, the point is this – if you don’t decide exactly where you’re headed, you will never get there. So take the time now before moving on to decide on some goals. What does the ultimate version of you look like? What are they capable of? Why do you want that? How much better would your life be? Once you have a clear vision of that person, you’re ready for step #2.
#2 – WHAT CAN YOU CONSISTENTLY DO?
A mediocre program followed consistently and with effort is infinitely better than a perfect program done half-heartedly. So be honest with yourself, how much time per day do you have to train? How many days per week? What time of day? Where will you train? What kind of equipment do you have access to? How do all of these things fit together?
In step 1 we figured out your goals – where you want to wind up. In step 2 you are going to lay out what tools and resources you have available to get there.
There are three big mistakes I tend to see people make during this part of the process that we need to avoid if we want to be successful over the long haul.
1) Getting so excited about reaching their goals that they are overly ambitious. Planning to work out 7 days a week at 2 hours a pop, failing to plan for the drop in motivation that inevitably comes, leaving no margin for error when life gets messy… this is a recipe for disaster.
2) Looking at their schedule and, once seeing that they can only commit 30 minutes at a time 2-3x per week, decide they aren’t even going to try because they don’t think it’s enough to make a difference.
3) Failing to schedule their workouts into their calendar and just trying to play it by ear from day to day. There will be days you don’t feel like training, and if you don’t have a plan you will find excuses not to. Your strength is in your routine.
So make sure you’re honest with yourself about what you can commit to nearly 100% of the time. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have hours and hours to train – it just means you need to be efficient with your time and the exercises you choose. You can absolutely see results from short, intense workouts done a few times a week.
Lastly, where will you train and what equipment is there? Is it possible to schedule your workout on the way to/from work when you’ll be passing by anyway? Are you going to be squeezing in a quick, 30-minute home workout before the kids wake up in the morning? You can make great progress with just your body weight, but if you’re willing to invest in a few small pieces of equipment for your home gym your options open up exponentially. Is that something you’re willing to invest in?
#3 – ASSESS THE SITUATION
The last part of figuring out what we’re working with is to paint a clear picture of where you are now in relation to where you want to be, as well as uncover any weak links or muscle imbalances you might have. Ignoring weaknesses is probably the biggest cause of injury in recreational fitness enthusiasts.
For instance, if you don’t have the stability to perform a lunge on your left leg very well but your right leg is great, then correcting that should be a major part of your program. If you can bench press more than you can deadlift – this is a problem that’s worth addressing.
For novices to structured training, looking up some mobility standards and movement fundamentals assessments would be a great place to start. Now novice does not mean “has never worked out before.” I mean novice to structured training. So even if you’ve been doing your boot camp class 3 days per week for the last 5 years, if have never stopped to look at how your body is actually moving – start here.
If you’re a little more experienced, your assessment might involve testing your 1RM (one rep maximum) on the lifts you want to improve, testing your mile run time, or seeing how many consecutive pullups you can do.
Wherever you’re starting out, we need to understand how far away you are from your goal and what are the biggest gaps in your ability to reach it.
OK! So far we have:
-set your goals
-out what resources you have to reach them
laid-discovered the biggest holes in your performance that need to be plugged to reach them
This gives us our point A and our point B, so now you can start working toward creating a path that connects the two.
#4 KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID)
It’s easy when you want to build muscle to look at a professional bodybuilder’s program and get excited about the 37 different bicep curl variations he does. I mean, he’s huge so clearly it works right?!
Another example might be mimicking an Olympic sprinter’s workout routine when you want to run faster.
On the surface, it seems to make logical sense, but it’s very important to remember that the things someone is doing now are not the same things that got them there.
You have to learn the rules and master them before you can graduate them or break them, and when it comes to improving your body the rule is this – stick mostly to hard, basic exercises. Choose the ones you’re good at or enjoy, do more today than you did yesterday, and do that for a very long time.
The beginner trying to build bigger arms is going to see far better results by getting very strong at pullups and bench presses than by doing eleven billion bicep curls. The novice runner would be better served by just getting stronger in general, running more often, and challenging themself to go faster or longer, than to follow an Olympic athlete’s training routine.
#5 – DEFINE YOUR PRIMARY EXERCISES
Looking at the goals you defined in Step 1, and the information gained from your assessment in Step 3, what are the best exercises to reach those goals and bring up those weaknesses?
This is the part of the process for many people where the idea of paying for a program makes sense – they just don’t know what exercises to choose.
It’s beyond the scope of this guide to try to list all of the best exercises for all the different goals, and it wouldn’t be possible anyway because everyone’s needs will be different. There’s no way around the fact that this step will require some effort and research on your part, but let me give you a simplified way to look at it.
When it comes down to it, we basically have 6 fundamental movement patterns – vertical push (ex. overhead presses), horizontal push (ex. pushups, bench press), vertical pull (ex. pullups, lat pulldown), horizontal pull (ex. bent over row, cable row), hip hinge (ex. romanian deadlift, hip thrust), and knee bend (ex. squat, lunges, leg press).
Your program should include at least one exercise from each of these categories, with extra attention given to any weak areas or particular lifts you want to improve.
#6 – CREATE YOUR WARMUP ROUTINE
Sure, for a warmup we could just jog on the treadmill for 10 minutes. It would serve the purpose of literally bringing our body temperature up, but it does little to actually prepare our body for the specific tasks ahead.
I prefer to use my warmup time a little more intelligently. It’s a great opportunity to throw in some “prehab” work to correct imbalances or weak links and set us up for a good performance during the actual workout.
For instance, if you have a little kyphosis going on (rounding of your upper spine) then including something like band pullaparts or face pulls in your warmup routine would be an awesome way to help correct the issue while lubing up your shoulders for something like a heavy bench press workout.
If you plan to squat and we know you have weak glutes, then some banded glute bridges will build strength and function in that area while simultaneously “waking up” your hips so that they contribute to your primary squatting movement later in the workout.
Don’t go overboard with correctives here. If you’re moving quickly a warmup shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes – maybe 20 if you’re an orthopedic mess like me.
#7 – CHOOSE SECONDARY EXERCISES
The reason we choose secondary exercises last is because… they’re secondary! They’re less important.
The primary exercises will do the heavy lifting when it comes to getting you to your goals. The warmup gives us the ability to execute the primary exercises well while keeping you balanced and safe. The secondary exercises are where we can squeeze in other exercises to either create a more balanced program, move toward other non-competing goals, or just include certain exercises you love that may not be relevant to your goals at the time.
This might look like some bicep curls to get some extra arm work in after your pull-ups or some leg pressing to get some more quad work after a deadlifting session.
If your goal is absolute strength, this might be a place to throw in some conditioning work to keep you sharp. Or if you’ve gotten to this point and realized you have 5 chest exercises but only two for your back, then this is where we throw in some extra back work to balance this out.
If you’re limited by the amount of time you can give to your workouts then we may not include any secondary exercises – even if it means your training is a little out of balance in the short term. Stay focused on your current goal, and once we reach it we can always adjust later.
#8 – WORKOUT SPLITS
No not those kinds of splits.
How you lay out your workout routine will mostly come down to how answered step 2. If you only have time for 2-3 short workouts per week, then anything other than short, intense, full-body workouts would be a poor use of time. If you plan to spend an hour a day training 6 days per week, we can get a little more creative.
There are countless ways you could lay out your routine, so let me just share a few of the most common.
Full body Split done 3 days per week. This might look like:
Monday – Full Body
Tuesday – Rest
Wednesday – Full Body
Thursday – Rest
Friday – Full Body
Saturday – Rest
Sunday – Rest
Pros: This workout split is tried and true, and will generally give the best results for a beginner/intermediate trainee. You only have to find time for the gym three days per week. It exposes your muscles to a stimulus to adapt three times a week without overloading them and gives you the opportunity to practice technique frequently.
Cons: Full-body workouts are tough and can be time-consuming. They may not leave a lot of time or energy for many secondary exercises or prehab work.
Upper/ Lower Split 4 days per week. This split is great for intermediate/advanced trainees, and workable for beginners. It may look like:
Monday – Upper Body
Tuesday -Lower Body
Wednesday -Rest
Thursday – Upper Body
Friday – Lower Body
Saturday – Rest
Sunday -Rest
Pros: Training fewer muscles per workout allows you to use more variety in your exercise choices as well as getting a higher volume of total work for a given muscle group. Only training each muscle group twice per week allows for more recovery time (which can become an obstacle as you get stronger, or if something like squatting 3x/week is too hard on your knees).
Cons: Not much. You lose out on some of the benefits of training your whole body at once but for post-novice trainees trying to look good and perform better without living in the gym – the upper/lower split is a solid choice.
Bodybuilding Bro Split 5 days per week. If you believe Monday is International Chest Day then the bro split might be for you. This can be done in a ton of different ways, but here’s an example:
Monday – International Chest Day
Tuesday – Back
Wednesday – Legs
Thursday – Shoulders/Calves
Friday – Arms
Saturday – Rest
Sunday – Rest
Pros: In terms of results, there aren’t many pros unless you’re already huge and strong and need tons of recovery time, or if you’re an experienced bodybuilder who already carries a lot of muscle but needs to fine-tune their biceps peak or something. I suppose some people just like the feeling of destroying a muscle group with dozens of sets, but for most people most of the time, this is not an ideal split.
Cons: Your muscles usually take about 1-3 days to recover, so training each muscle only once per week is not going to optimize results. It also requires you to be in the gym almost daily – which is fine, it’s just too much for some people.
BONUS – Hybrid Split. This would incorporate Upper, Lower, and Full Body workouts into a single week. This is a good way to get some of the focused attention our bodies get from the upper/lower split, as well as the benefits of frequent stimulation and practice we get from a full body routine.
You could lay it out a lot of different ways – get creative based on your schedule! Here’s just one example:
Monday – Upper
Tuesday – Lower
Wednesday – Rest
Thursday – Full Body
Friday – Rest
Saturday – Full Body
Sunday – Rest
#9 – SETS, REPS, REST, WEIGHT, CIRCUITS AND SUPERSETS
Home stretch! If you’ve made it this far I have no doubt you’ll be successful. Now we can get down to the nitty-gritty!
There are a lot of ways you can manipulate all of these variables, so let me give you some general rules/guidelines to follow so you can make some intelligent decisions.
SETS
A set is a series of repetitions you complete without stopping. 3 sets of 8-10 reps is a great place to fall if you’re just getting started. 3-5 total sets per exercise is pretty typical. For a highly technical exercise like squats, doing 5 sets or more is great because it gives you more opportunity to practice and fine-tune the movement. For a secondary exercise like bicep curls (unless bigger biceps is your primary goal), 3 hard sets should be plenty.
REPS / REST
Very heavy sets are not advisable for a beginner, so I would recommend starting in the 10-15 rep range. Once you’re a little more experienced, here is a pretty solid general rule:
For absolute strength, 1-5 reps with 3-5 minutes rest between sets.
For a mix of strength and muscle gain, 5-10 reps with 2-3 minutes rest between sets.
For muscular endurance, 10-15 reps with 1-2 minutes rest between sets.
If you can do more than 15 reps with a given weight, you’re no longer strength training – add weight.
WEIGHT
As cool as it looks on Instagram, constantly training to complete muscular failure actually isn’t very productive. That said, most people don’t train as hard as they think they do and it should be tough. So how to choose an appropriate weight? It will take a little trial and error, but here are some thoughts:
– When starting out or introducing a new exercise, always err on the side of too light over too heavy. Use it as an opportunity to focus on technique. You can always add weight later.
– Leave 1-2 reps “in the tank.” If you’ve planned to do 3 sets of 8 reps, aim to choose a weight that would cause you to fail around 10 reps.
– If the idea of doing your next set doesn’t scare you just a little bit, you should probably use more weight.
CIRCUITS AND SUPERSETS
These are both ways to increase what is called workout density – doing more work in less time. These are awesome if you’re limited on time, and can improve the effectiveness of your workouts if fat loss is the goal.
A superset would be training two different muscle groups one after the other with no rest in between. For instance, doing a set of goblet squats followed immediately by a set of pushups, then resting before repeating the superset again.
A circuit on the other hand would be 3 or more exercises completed in a row without rest. This might be a set of each pullups, chest press, lunges, and situps before resting and repeating the entire circuit again.
While these can be a good way to make more efficient use of your time, it’s important not to go overboard here. If you take too little rest, you won’t be able to recover enough between sets to keep your performance up during the workout. If the amount of weight you can use goes down dramatically over the course of a set, take more rest.
Lastly, make sure not to superset exercises that train the same exact muscles. I see this a lot of social media and it just confuzzles me. Doing lunges followed immediately by squats will accomplish nothing but to make you less effective at both.
#10 – MAKE A WORKOUT LOG
Don’t skip this step!!!
The whole reason we get results in the gym, the entire premise behind it, is the cycle of Stress – Recovery – Adaptation. We go to the gym, apply a stress to our body, recover from that stress, and come back better equipped to handle it next time.
What this means is that if you aren’t continually challenging yourself, your body will stop changing. It doesn’t need to anymore because it’s already adapted to the stress you’re exposing it to.
Going balls to the wall every workout might make you feel like a beast, but it makes you dumb. Doing as much as your body possibly can, every single day, is a fast track to burnout and injury.
So the way we make progress while avoiding injury is to do just a little more today than we did the day before. That could mean adding 5 more pounds, doing one more rep, or taking less rest between sets.
We’re talking changes so small that you barely notice them from week to week, but that add up to huge gains over time. How do you keep track of what you did before to know exactly what to do today? A workout log.
Without keeping track of your workouts you have no way to know if you’re actually doing more than last time unless you push yourself to your absolute limit every single day, which we’ve already established is not an intelligent way to train.
Don’t trust yourself to remember all the details of last week’s workout – you won’t. Besides, it’s cool to be able to look back over time and see how far you’ve come.
On top of that, having a plan and knowing exactly what you need to do each day before you get to the gym makes you way more likely to actually do it. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Knowing how many reps you have to get and how much weight to use prevents you from doing less than you know you’re capable of. It keeps you accountable. No more wandering around the gym trying to think of what to do next, or sitting on the good girl/bad girl machine staring at your phone procrastinating. Just execute the plan and know you will make progress.
BONUS TIPS
– Quality over Quantity. Training is our opportunity to reinforce good movement, so approach every rep with the intention of working toward perfect technique. Leave your ego at the door and never sacrifice technique to move more weight. No one actually cares how much you can bench press. Seriously. They don’t.
– Focus on performance. Even if your goals revolve around gaining muscle or losing fat. The work you do in the gym is what will be responsible for your results, so focusing on improving your performance keeps your eyes on the actions that will drive results. Focusing on the scale just brings frustration. Get stronger, get faster, and eat to support that goal – the aesthetic results will follow.
– Follow a program for a minimum of 6 weeks before making any judgments about how well it works for you. 12 is better. Changing your body is a (sometimes painfully) slow process – give it time. If you’re not getting results, the first step is to look in the mirror and honestly ask yourself if you’ve been working as hard as you could be and if you’ve been as consistent as you think you have. Don’t have workout ADD and program hop every two weeks.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Nate Birner
Featured Image by Ichigo121212 from Pixabay
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