Structuring your personal strength training program …

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So you’ve decided to commit to a weekly personal strength training program – congratulations, wise decision!

Now let’s work on helping you design a weekly strength training program to commit to.

In my last blog post, I answered the question about how many times per week you should exercise each major muscle group (you can find that post here), noting the overwhelming evidence is that two times per week produces optimal results.

But there’s more to structuring your workout regimen than just how many times per week you exercise each muscle group. Before we go any further, let me clarify that many fitness experts often consider these to be the major muscle groups in your body:

    • Chest.
    • Back.
    • Arms.
    • Abdominals.
    • Legs.
    • Shoulders.

Some people also divide these muscle groups into more specific categories such as:

    • Calves (lower leg).
    • Hamstrings (back of upper leg).
    • Quadriceps (front of upper leg).
    • Glutes (butt and hips).
    • Biceps (front of upper arms).
    • Triceps (back of upper arms).
    • Forearms (lower arm).
    • Trapezius (traps) (top of shoulders).
    • Latissimus dorsi (lats) (under the armpits).

In addition to deciding how many times per week you will exercise each major muscle group, a key element in your personal fitness program is each time you work out, how many different exercises for each muscle group should you do?

Huh?

DIFFERENT EXERCISES FOR EACH MUSCLE GROUP
If you think you can hit the gym and do a single kind of exercise for a specific muscle group and soon see gains, you’ll be disappointed. Doing just one type of exercise per muscle group is the minimum for maintenance, NOT for any serious goal of seeing gains. To achieve real gains, and do so effectively and efficiently, you will need to do a minimum of two – but preferably three – different kinds of exercises for each muscle group.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you specifically want to strengthen your back. If you only do one type of exercise two times per week for your back, you will see minimal to negligible gains over a long, slow period. Again, one kind of exercise twice weekly is a minimum for maintenance. So, to achieve your goal of strengthening your back, you want to do at least two – but preferably three – different kinds of exercise for your back twice a week. That could look like a workout including bent over barbell rows, lat pull downs, and single-arm dumbbell rows to have three different exercises for the back.

SETS AND REPS
Now for the next layer to your workout design: You’ll be exercising each muscle group two times per week, and doing three different exercises for each muscle group, but now you need to decide how many sets and repetitions (reps) for each exercise.

One set of each exercise is, at best, a minimum for maintenance; for gains, you will want to do at least two – but preferably three – sets for each kind of exercise. So, in the example of working out your back, that could include a workout that looks like this – three sets of barbell rows, three sets of lat pull downs, and three sets of single-arm dumbbell rows.

Now that you have your number of sets, you need to determine your number of repetitions of an exercise in every set. The deeper you get into designing your personal workout regimen, the more there are different individual variables to consider (which is a MAJOR REASON why I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE anyone who has the available funds to hire a certified Personal Trainer to help them design their personal exercise program). But here are some basic guidelines for your consideration:

    • When “lifting heavy” (training with heavier weight or greater resistance), do fewer repetitions, about 5-8.
    • When training with medium weight or resistance, do 10-12 repetitions.
    • When training with light weight or resistance, do more repetitions, about 15-20.

So, let’s put this together in your example of strengthening your back:

    • Number of back workouts per week- Two.
    • In a back workout, do three different kinds of back exercises (such as bent over barbell rows, lat pull downs, and single-arm dumbbell rows).
    • Do a minimum of two – but preferably three – sets of 5-8 reps for heavy lifting, OR 10-12 reps per set for medium resistance, OR 15-20 reps per set for using light resistance.

SPLITS
For a finishing layer to your workout program design, you need to determine your “split,” or which muscle groups you’ll be working out on what day each week. There are various options to choose from, but generally there are three main splits used:

    • Body part workout splits.
    • Upper/lower workout split.
    • Push, pull, legs workout split.

Body part workout split – A body part workout split has you train one to three body parts per training session twice per week. It’s a popular option among bodybuilders since body part splits let you train muscles more often for more growth. An example of a body part workout split would be the following:

Monday: Chest and triceps.
Tuesday: Back, biceps, and abdominals.
Wednesday: Legs and shoulders.
Thursday: Rest.
Friday: Chest and triceps.
Saturday: Back, biceps, and abdominals.
Sunday: Legs and shoulders.

Upper/lower workout split – An upper/lower split divides workouts into upper-body focused days and lower-body days. This split is can be good for beginners, people on tight schedules, and those focused on getting stronger. It forces the person to prioritize the basics and cut the fat from their program. An example of a upper/lower workout split would be the following:

Monday: Upper body.
Tuesday: Lower body.
Wednesday: Rest.
Thursday: Upper body.
Friday: Lower body.
Saturday and Sunday: Rest.

Push, pull, legs workout split – This workout split is similar to the upper/lower split. The main difference is that a PPL split divides upper-body training into two categories, pulling and pushing. Pushing exercises usually involve the quads, calves, chest, shoulders, and triceps (for example, squats, calf raises, bench presses, overhead presses, and dips). Pulling exercises often involve the back, hamstrings, some types of shoulder exercises, biceps, and abs. These could include lat pulldowns, hamstring curls, upright rows, bicep curls, and crunches. An example of a push, pull, legs split would be the following:

Monday: Push (chest, shoulders, triceps).
Tuesday: Pull (back, biceps, abdominals).
Wednesday: Legs.
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Push.
Saturday: Pull.
Sunday: Legs.

This can vary, such as the following:

Monday: Push.
Tuesday: Pull.
Wednesday: Legs.
Thursday: Push.
Friday: Pull.
Saturday: Legs.
Sunday: Rest.

So now you have a complete structure for strength training!

As noted previously, there are MULTIPLE variables for every individual in designing a personal workout regimen. If I can be of assistance to you, you can email me at dr.scott@scottfreeclinic.org.

ALSO IMPORTANT …
A final note: Critically important to exercising safely, effectively, and efficiently are the issues of form and technique. Check out my previous blog post on those topics here.

Scotty