Getting the motivation to workout isn’t the only hold up. Do you know what another culprit is? Not knowing what to do. I am not referring to how to use the machines (though that is apart of it), but literally having no idea how to structure a workout. Do you do a full body workout? Legs? Arms? What muscle groups even make up “arms” and legs”. Many people are in the gym doing whatever machine is available with no real plan. Today I am going to discuss with you how to come up with a routine along with some knowledge on the body and gym terminology. Let me preface this by saying your goals will change, your workout routine will change, and you will learn A LOT along the way. Don’t be afraid to start. Just start. The quicker you start, the quicker you can get through that awkward stage. There is soooo much that can be said about this topic, but for the sake of an article and to not overwhelm you, we are going to keep this basic. Let's get into it.
1. Define Your Goals
You need to know what you are working towards. It’s like going to college with no major and doing general education. Yes, you will learn and explore A LOT of different things, but you won’t be on the accelerated path to anything. Focus on your MAIN goal. Sometimes you may want to lose weight, tone up, be more flexibility, and run a 5K. Sure, you can do all of these things, but we need to define the MAJOR goal first so you can properly plan. A weight loss plan would involve elevation of the heart rate for a longer period of time. Think cardio and HITT style strength training. Muscle building would involve less cardio and more weights. Running A 5K would be a lot of cardio (which could also help with the weight loss). Some of these goals can and will overlap, but its still important to prioritize one, initially.
2. Things You Need
Warm-Up
Workout
Cool-Down
Recovery
No matter the goal, most workout plans will be in this structure. The "workout" portion will include some form of cardio, strength training, and/or mobility. This is how you will build your workout. Again, back to the goals. If you are prepping for a 5K you’ll want to do your cardio first. If you do strength training firs, it can empty your energy reserves and when its time to run, you'll be fatigued and you won’t be able to perform at your highest capacity. If muscle building is your goal, you may want to weight lift first and do the cardio later so that you may use all your energy reserves to lift at your highest capacity before working on endurance/cardio. In other words, whatever your priority goal is, do that first. Lastly, do not neglect recovery. This is where growth happens. It’s on the rest days that your muscles repair and grow bigger so it is important to put this in your routine. You can stretch, get massages, or soak in a bath. If you prefer a more active recovery, you can take light walks, do yoga, or any other light movement. Recovery can also look like working out legs on Monday, upper body on Tuesday, core on Wednesday, and legs again on Thursday. Although you’ve worked out everyday, your legs recovered for two days before you worked them out again. Recovery doesn’t always mean doing nothing, it just means not working out the same muscle groups every day.
To avoid injuries and discomfort, do not neglect your warm-ups and cool-downs.
3. Terminology
You will hear people throw these terms around so let's make sure you know what they mean.
Reps: Repititions. This is how many times you will perform a given exercise. For example, if a coach were to say "Let's do 12 reps of squats" you would squat 12 times, consecutively.
Sets: The amount of times you will repeat the given number of reps. Using the previous example, if a coach were to say "Let's do 3 sets of those (squats)" you would do 12 squats, rest, 12 more squats, rest, and then the final set of 12 for a total of 36 squats. You will usually see this written as Squats: 3 x 12. Which means 3 sets of 12 reps.
Rest: The time between sets or exercises in which you are not doing anything apart from allowing your muscles to recover. This can be anywhere from 10 seconds up to 3 minutes. It depends on the goal of the workout as well as the intensity.
Progressive Overload: The frequency at which you advance your workouts. In order to improve your performance overtime, you'll need to increase the intensity of your workouts. Doing the same workouts at the same intensity week after week/month after month will cause you to be stagnant. Progressively overload your intensity overtime by increasing the weight, speed, reps, sets, etc. I do not recommend doing all of these at once, but on a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly basis, pick one. The choice is yours!
DOMS: Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness. This is the (normal) tenderness/soreness you feel after a workout. It typically occurs 1-2 days after you have worked out a particular muscle group, hence why it is called "delayed". There is also a misconception that if you do not feel sore, you did not workout hard enough. That is not true. Feeling sore is not the goal, but it can happen sometimes especially if you have introduced something new.
Time Under Tension: The amount of time your muscles are contracting. Let's take a bicep curl for example. If you spend 3-5 seconds doing 1 bicep curl, that muscle will be contracting for a longer period of time than if you were to spend 1-2 seconds performing the exercise. The more time the muscle spends engaged, the more it will develop.
4. Muscle Groups
It is important to know what the muscle groups are. This will help you select the correct exercises. We have 600 muscles in our body so I am only going to cover the major ones.
Upper Body
Chest (Pectorals)
Back (Latissimus and Trapezius.. Lats and Traps for short)
Shoulders (Front, Lateral, and Rear Deltoids)
Biceps
Triceps
Lower Body
Quadriceps (Quads)
Hamstrings
Glutes
Hip Flexors
Calves
Core
Low back
Obliques
Hips
Upper abs
Lower abs
When you are at the gym and your focus is upper body, look for machines that target the muscle groups listed in "upper body". I always recommend doing the larger muscle groups first (chest and back) before doing the smaller ones (shoulders, triceps, and biceps). Since the chest and back are such large muscle groups, they rely on the arms to assist them. However, if you have already burned out your arms, they won't be of much help. In the case of legs, all of those muscle groups are major.
5. Imbalances
Our muscles come in antagonistic pairs in which one muscle group that is contracting is the agonist and the one that is lengthening is the antagonist. These pairs are:
Chest and Back
Biceps and Triceps
Quads and Hamstrings
Core and Lower Back
Essentially, they are the muscle groups that are directly opposite each other. The reason this is important is because you do not want to create muscle imbalances. What I mean by this is, if you only workout your chest but neglect your back, your chest will get stronger and leave you with a weak back. This will create an imbalance and eventually the back will no longer be able to support your chest, which will cause a chest injury due to overcompensation. To avoid this, be sure you strengthen them both. You don't necessarily have to do them on the same day, but aim to do them within the same week. Perhaps you will do chest on Monday and back on Wednesday.
6. Workout Structure
Now that you have all of this information, how do you plan a weekly workout schedule? I am going to give you a few different ways you can program a strength training plan along with the benefits of each.
Full Body Split
Great for beginners
Targets every muscle group in the same workout (so no imbalances)
Less DOMS (you are most likely to perform 1-2 exercises per muscle group so the muscles aren't being heavily loaded)
Can perform this 2-3 times a week, giving yourself a day off in between (Ex: Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
Time efficient (as you can perform compound exercises and hit 2 muscle groups at once)
Gives you flexibility to add in other types of training
Upper/Lower Split
A step up from a beginner workout
A great way to build more muscle (spending more time on one area of your body)
Targets all upper body on one day and all lower body on another (only one part of your body is sore as opposed to a full sore body)
Gives you less to do (only 5-6 muscle groups to focus on instead of 15)
Also reduces the chance of muscle imbalances since every workout will involve both the agonist and antagonist muscle.
Gives you flexability to add in other types of training
Since the muscle groups are different, you do not need a rest day in between.
Can perform this 2 or 4 times a week (Ex: Monday and Tuesday or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday)
Push/Pull/Leg Split
Utilized by advanced lifters
More DOMS which comes with greater muscle building due to spending more time on one group
Gives your muscle groups more time to recover
Can perform this 3 or 6 times a week (Ex: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday)
Since the muscle groups are different, you do not need a rest day in between
Gives you flexibility to add in other types of training (if you keep it to 3 days, instead of 6)
Push Muscles (chest, tricep, and shoulders)
Pull Muscles (Back and Biceps.. some people will add in core here)
Leg Muscles (All Lower Body Muscles)
The only correct split is the one you enjoy doing.
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