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It's hardly a shock to anyone that putting together your own weight training plan is a complicated and daunting task. Integrating the various components of all the 'best weight training plans', and adapting them them to a workable programme for you. Asking yourself, how many sets do I need to do? How often should I go to the gym? And what do I even need to do when I get there?!
In this blog we are going to discuss how to structure your own weight training plan. Every step you need to take to make it work, and using scientific evidence to answer the most common questions when it comes to programming.
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What is Weight training?
First of all, let's understand what weight training is.
Weight training, or resistance training, is any exercise that involves moving a load for a set amount of time or reps. This can range from bodyweight exercises, like push ups or squats to free weight exercises, like deadlifts of bicep curls. Resistance exercise develops the muscular system in a lot more ways than just physical size. Consistent and regular weight training will produce increases in strength, power, flexibility and balance, as well as sport specific and practical applications.
Why is resistance exercise important?
The importance of weight training is often over-looked by a lot of people, under the assumption that it's going to result in an overly bulky physique. This is definitely not the case. As we mentioned above, weight training has physiological benefits such as, developing and managing the muscular system as well as managing and maintaining the health and strength of our bones, reducing the stress and discomfort caused by complications like arthritis and low back pain. Additionally, resistance exercise will catalyse your resting metabolic rate, decrease risk of circulatory issues by assisting management of blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and improve insulin sensitivity. A 2012 report looked at the Effects of Strength Training on Health and goes in to more detail on the effects of resistance exercise.
The positive benefits of resistance exercise stem much further from just 'getting stronger', which is why it should be a staple in anybody's workout plan.
How to build your own weight training plan!
Why is goal setting so important? Think of it this way. If I said I want you to go to the shop to buy me a bottle of milk, logically what are the steps you would take. First you might google where the nearest shop is. Then, you might put it into your satnav and drive to the shop, look for the milk, and then drive home. Goal achieved. So without really thinking about it, you've started with an objective, and worked backwards to figure out how to achieve it. This is why a goal is important. Without an end goal how are you supposed to know what to do or how to get there?
So your goal might be weight loss. That's an alright start, but we need to make is more specific. Again, if I asked you to go to the shop to buy me 'some milk', how would you know what type of milk I want, or how much I need? So set your self a realistic, achievable, but more importantly, specific goal. This might be, "I want to be 75kg by the time I go on holiday in 8 weeks", or, "I want to be able to squat 10kg heavier in 12 weeks time". Now you have a goal you can work towards and start to create logical steps to get there.
2 - Set a realistic frequency (how often you need to train)
One of the biggest reasons new gym goers lose their motivation and stop going to the gym is because they do too much too soon. Setting yourself a realistic frequency for how many times you should go to the gym is very important, and relies on your experience and fitness levels to get right. It's great to have motivation and be keen to train, but what we see from a lot of new clients is the ambition to get back into the gym and instantly try to go 5-6 times a week, but it isn't necessary! As a beginner, more is not better!
A 2001 report looked at the effects and benefits of resistance exercise on health. 'They showed that research indicates that virtually all the benefits of resistance training are likely to be obtained in two 15- to 20-min training sessions a week.' Essentially this tells us that as little as 40 minutes a week of proper resistance training is enough to start making substantial progress as a beginner. As you progress, become fitter and more accustomed to exercise, you should then start to think about increasing your frequency to match our progression.
So if your new to the gym or weight training, we recommend 2-3, 45-60 minute workouts a week. For more advanced gym goers, increase your frequency accordingly with your schedule, the most experienced lifters, aiming for 5-6 sessions per week.
3 - Structuring your week (training splits)
Okay, we are beginning to build the foundations of our weight training plan now. The next step to structuring your resistance training programme is to plan your week of workouts by building your 'split'. What is a training split? A workout split is the structure you apply to your sessions, determining which day you will be training which muscle group. For example, you might follow an upper lower workout split, meaning on one day you train your upper body, and the next you train your lower body. Or you might be following push pull legs. The training split you choose should correlate with your frequency and exercise experience.
We recommend...
2 sessions per week Full Body Split
Monday - rest
Tuesday - Full Body
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - rest
Friday - Full Body
Weekend - rest
3 sessions per week Upper Lower Full Body split
Monday - Upper Body
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Full Body
Thursday - rest
Friday - Lower Body
Weekend - rest
4 sessions a week Upper Lower Body Split
Monday - Upper Body
Tuesday - Lower Body
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - Upper Body
Friday - Lower Body
Weekend - rest
5+ sessions per week Push Pull Legs Split
Monday - Push
Tuesday - Pull
Wednesday - Legs
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Push
Saturday - Pull
Sunday - (optional) Legs
4 - Exercise selection
Maybe the hardest part of building your own weight training plan is selecting which exercises you need to do? What is the best exercise for weight loss? Building muscle? Growing strength? Admittedly, there are a lot of factors that need to be considered to make the 'perfect' plan. But does it have to be 'perfect' to get you results. No!! Unless you are competing in a powerlifting show or hyrox event, you don't need to have all the calculations and precise lifting regimes to follow to make progress. All you really need is a structure you can manage, challenges you and most importantly, that you enjoy.
Again, exercise selection will be influenced by the plan you have made so far. How often are you training and do what split are you planning?
Exercises we recommend...
For full body splits
Lower Body exercises
Squats
Leg press
Deadlift
RDL
Hip thrust
Upper Body exercises
Barbell bent over row
Bench press
Overhead press
Seated row
For Upper Lower Body splits (Any of the above plus)
Lower Body exercises
Leg extension
Leg curl
Hip abduction
Hip adduction
Upper Body
Dumbbell lateral raise
Reverse fly's
Chest fly's
Single arm dumbbell row
Lat pulldown
For push pull leg splits (all of the above plus)
Push exercises
Incline cable fly
Chest supported lateral raises
guillotine press
Pull exercises
Single arm cable pulldown
Y-raises
Straight arm pulldown
5 - Sets and reps
We are very close to having a fully equipped exercise plan now. We've selected what days we will be training, what split we will be following and what exercises we will be doing. The final step in making the best weight training plan is understanding sets and reps. The most common question even experienced lifters ask, is how much do I need to do in the gym? Different recommendations for different exercise goals are thrown around when it comes to answering this question. When preparing for this blog, I looked at two different analysis reports for strength and hypertrophy when it comes to set work.
The first analysis report looked at the difference between one and multiple sets for increases in muscular strength. Across 14 studies, the conclusion was that multiple sets of exercise were associated with up to 46% more strength gains than single sets. The results of the study indicated that 2-3 sets should be used for strength training.
Additionally, a meta-analysis on 8 studies reported in 2010 showed similar results for hypertrophy training (muscle mass). The conclusion of this study showed that multiple sets showed up to a 40% higher increase in muscle hypertrophy than single sets.
The next question to answer is how many reps should I be doing? Typically it does depend on your fitness goals. For example, muscular strength and muscular hypertrophy training have different recommended rep ranges. Generally, high load and low reps (1-6) is considered optimal for strength training, whilst moderate load and moderate to high rep ranges (6-20) are considered for optimal hypertrophy training. However, recent studies show that, especially for muscle hypertrophy, reps completed isn't as important as proximity to mechanical failure. Essentially, this means as long as you push your sets hard to challenge your muscular system, the reps you complete are not necessarily as important.
How many sets of exercise should I do?
So concluding the above to reports alongside standard recommendations for general weight lifting, we propose 2-3 sets per exercise and 6-15 reps per set. Once again, this is a very generalised goal, if you are following a specific programme or goal, these set/rep targets may change.
So now what do you need to get started? A pen, paper and a cool gym outfit!
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