Learning To Program Your Own Workouts

As soon as you outgrow the cookie-cutter plan you got free with your membership, you're in a  quandary. The internet is full of ready-made workout plans, but since some of them are obviously aimed at people at least a hundred years older than you and others call for three hours of undulating drop sets of bench presses starting at 350lb and going up, it can be hard to figure out where you fit in. 

You'll have to throw a few things overboard first though.

First, say goodbye to WODs. Almost all of these are a substitute for a training plan. Because there's no consistency it's hard to know if you're getting better (more on that in a moment) and you're repeatedly doing loads of different movements. That doesn't make a lot of sense: there's no such thing as "muscle confusion," really, just confusion. Get good at some basic moves and you'll see results.

Second, say goodbye to wishful thinking. Facing the fact that you're not a genetically gifted athlete can be baiter pill to swallow but it frees you to achieve life-changing results in just a couple of hours a week once you start training for you, not the person you wish you were. 

We need to start with some questions.

• If you had three wishes to do with health and fitness, what would you wish for? It can help to write them down.
• What if you had two?
• Finally, what if you only had one?

Now we're a lot closer to the answer to the most important question you need to answer about your training: what do you want?

You can have two simultaneous goals — so many males will have "lose fat and gain muscle" while many females will opt for "lose fat and tone." Note that this is the same wish phrased differently.

Now you know what you want, shall I tell you what you need?

In this order, you need:

• Strength
• Mobility
• Muscle
• General Physical Preparation

Of course, if you're a ballet dancer you don't need mobility advice from me. If you're a powerlifter you don't need strength advice from me. But you don't need my advice on how to program your training either. If you're not quite good at something quite athletic, and your fitness goals are general and to do with how you look and feel rather than  your performance at a particular sport, the above holds true.

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Because we all live the same sedentary lifestyles and the science supports the idea that we all need the same solutions to the same problems. Gaining strength enables you to train harder, accelerating fat loss. It's also exhausting, accelerating metabolism. Finally, serious strength work repartitions nutrients at the cellular level, making it far easier to lose fat and gain muscle. This effect is amplified when you do gain some muscle, incidentally. We all have the same crummy mobility — hunched shoulders, tight hamstrings, short hip flexors — because we all sit in chairs all day. And we all have awful GPP because we all drive everywhere. 

How does this feed into programming?

How To Build Your Own Training Plan

You need a plan that builds on the most simple, basic movements. These are:

• Hinge: Bending at the hips. Deadlifts or kettlebell swings, for instance.
• Squat: The squat itself and all its many variations.
• Pull: Everything from inverse rows to cleans to chins.
• Push: Pushups, bench press, handstands, any pushing movement.
• Arch: Bridges, cleans and any movement where you arch over backward.
• Carry: Self-explanatory. Carrying things.

Strength work should be done between twice a week and once a fortnight, depending on how fast you recover. The easiest way to figure that out is to start at once a fortnight and gradually introduce more sessions.When you start feeling wrecked and you're not making progress, cut back again. 

Strength-hypertrophy-GPP should be done more regularly. You can build this into the same session, and can do one day on-one day off if it suits you, or space them out to a couple of times a week.

Find a movement you're comfortable with for each of the types above and build a training session. This could be:

• Swings
• Lunges
• Chins
• Pushups
• Prone Scorpions
• Rucksack walk

All that can be done with a rucksack full of dirty washing (or clean washing, just saying) and it's quite effective. For some people it could be a raw strength session, for others it wouldn't be an effective warm-up, but you can find your own level and your own favourite exercises as you train. The important thing is to know what you're going to do in the gym, and more importantly, why!

How Do You Know It's Working?

You'll know if your training is effective when it's getting you closer to your goals. Over three to four weeks, are you getting stronger and leaner? If you're buying new clothes and taking the stairs three at a time it's working. If you're always in pain and can't see changes after twelve weeks it's not.

What About Sets And Reps?

It's easy to find material on the internet recommending sets of about 1-3 for strength. But that's for highly experienced trainees. Add about two or three to every recommendation if you're new to training- do you strength workouts in the 6-10 rep range and your hypertrophy and physical prep training higher yet. Do between two and six sets. Legs will take about a third more volume than your upper body, you can pack on more volume with simple slow moves than fast or complex ones, and the most important thing is to stay safe.

READ Planning A Yearly Weight Training Cycle

If you'd like more detail, or you think I've really nailed it, get in touch in the comments section!