Have a plan. Having an idea of what you will be doing in the gym that day increases productivity and by doing that you will increase your progress.
If you are new to weight training and need advice on how to create a program for your workouts, look no further!
The first step in designing your training plan would be figuring out how many days a week you can dedicate to exercise. Once you know the number of days you will be in the gym you can decide what muscle groups you want to train and on what days. Every one has their own method and preferences for what body parts they like to train and why. Personally for beginners who can train 2-4 times a week I have them use a workout split similar to this:
- Day 1 Upper Body
- Day 2 Core and Cardio
- Day 3 lower body
- Day 4 Core and Cardio
For the intermediate to advanced client who wants to train 4-6 days a week I would have them follow a split similar to this:
- Day 1 Shoulders and Arms
- Day 2 Legs
- Day 3 Core and Cardio
- Day 4 Chest and back
- Optional 5th and 6th days
- Day 5 Legs
- Day 6 Core and Cardio again
The reason for splitting workouts up in this manner would be to optimize your progress and recovery. This type of split will also help you build a balanced physique.
The next step will be deciding what workouts you want to do for the muscle group you are training that day. I like to pick anywhere from 4-10 exercises. For the beginner, you can stick to the basic 3 sets of 10 for each exercise. As you get more advanced you can increase the weight and reps accordingly as well as incorporating super sets and drop sets which I will go over more in a future blog as well as examples of some of my different workouts.
I hope this helps those of you who do not yet have a workout program or are not getting f the progress you desire. From my experience I have found that I have way better focus and results when I have a solid plan in place for exercise routine before stepping into the gym.
Until next month, happy training!