Today’s topic also comes from our readers (thank you!): “How do you design your own workout?”
Hmm. Designing your own workout is often almost as complex as designing a spaceship and many trainees feel overwhelmed by this task. The result? Monday night chest routine also known as the “brah workout”.
Let’s take it from the top. The first thing you want to ask yourself is, what do you want to achieve? Two possible answers come to mind: 1. Perform better in a sport or 2. Look better. For goal number 1, I would recommend performing specific sport exercises and perhaps we will come back to this some other day. For most regular gym goers however, it will be choice number 2, to look better.
Then you need to establish how much time you can dedicate to training per week. Most trainees should be training their whole body twice a week. So if you only have two hours a week to train, then that would put you at two whole body workouts per week.
How do you build a whole body workout? Glad you asked!
The human body can more or less do four things: Squat, Lunge, Push, or Pull (SLPP). So you’ll need to incorporate those 4 movements. Examples for each would be:
Squats: Dumbbell Squats, Barbell Squats, Box Squats, Leg Presses, Goblet Squats
Lunges: Walking Lunges, Siff Lunges, Jumping Lunges
Push: Overhead Press, Incline Bench Press, Dips, Arnold Presses, Push Ups
Pull: Pull Ups, Rows, Pull Downs, Deadlifts
So our 2 hours a week trainee would simply perform 4 sets of one exercise per group in a progressive manner and have a solid base for a workout. If you free up more time, you can get more creative in your split but the basics still apply: 1. SLPP and 2. Train the whole body twice a week.
As for bulking and cutting… that has nothing to do with training but diet, and shall be covered in another newsletter!
Until next time,
Maik Wiedenbach