If not now, when?
Having a well structured workout plan is of great importance for your fitness journey. While being consistent is a must, planing your workouts plays a big role in achieving your dreams.
You can go to gym everyday, but if you constantly keep switcing up your workouts there is no place for progress in each excercise. Having a track of your workouts has many benefits like keeping you on track, pushing yourself to do more, seeing progress etc.
Having a fitness coach is good, but not everyone can afford one. No need to worry, you can easily make your own workout plan and I have made it easier for you. By following these main factors you will end up with a great free program.
Available days
To build a workout program the first thing you need to know is how many days a week you have available to excercise. It can range from zero to seven, depending on you.
Making time to workout is definitely hard if you have a job, school or any activity. You can make excuses, but like that you won’t get where you want to be. I know people that work two jobs, have kids and still manage to excercise. Half an hour is half an hour, any time you have available choose to excercise rather than watching tv or playing games.
The best would be if you have 3 to 7 days available, and I will share many workout splits later in the article so keep reading.
Goals
Depending on your fitness goals you program will vary. You can train for aesthetic, strength, endurance or flexibility. To get results you want it’s important to train acording to the best way to achieve them.
For strength you lift heavy weight 5 to 8 reps, for aesthetic or hypertrophy 8 to 15 reps and for endurance it’s best to go for higher reps.
To mention, you can also combine all these forms on each days. There is no one type fits all, everyone’s body is different. Not everyone will be able to lift the same weights and muscle grows at different rate. There are many studies proving this.
Excercises
Now, when you have decided your workout days it is time to write down excercises that you plan on doing. There are countless excercises that are great.
Before doing any excercises, it’s important to prep your body for activities. This is very important to prevent injuries. Warmig up can take anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes, do not overdo it so you can save strength for excercise. Doing dynamic streches, bodyweight or banded work or simply walking and riding bicycle.
Here are some excercises for every body part:
REMEMBER:
- Pay attention on form
- Do not ego lift
- Do not rush through reps
- Warm up first
- Strech after
Workout splits
You know all the excercises, available days and goals. Now it’s time to actually write down your program.
There are many great splits, like PPL, body part split, focused split, upper/lower etc.
All these are three day splits that you can do either at home or at gym, as a beginner or as an advanced lifter. Make sure to implement some rest days in between.
And here are other splits for more days. You can do them or either upper/lower or PPL for as many days as you would like.
Activie Rest Days
To lead a more healthy lifestyle, make sure that you move more. The point of these days is simple, you want to keep moving, improve your range-of-motion, repair your muscles, and maintain a habit of activity. Even better if you are trying to lose weight, this with eating right will put you in a caloric deficit
Active rest day can be achieved by:
Yoga. Yoga is great for flexibility and for your mind.
Hiking and going for walks. This is a great and fun way to rest while still doing some activity. Bring a friend along and burn some calories!
Swimming, lighter weight lifting, doing house chores etc.
Progressive Overload
Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your strength training routine. This challenges your body and allows your musculoskeletal system to get stronger.
Progressive overload can be achieved by:
- More reps, same weight
- More weight
- Better form with the same weight
- More sets
The point is to improve and get stronger every day. This will make muscles grow constantly by challenging them. Adding 1 kg every week is often overlook because it seems like insignificant weight. But adding little by little will lead you to being abke to lift way more in otger words progressive overload.
Rest days
Rest days are days when you take the day off. The reason many recommend rest days is to allow the body’s muscles to recover from any damage they’ve sustained during workouts, and to allow them to grow. And numerous scientific studies show that rest days do indeed play an important role in helping us maintain good health and fitness.
By not taking any rest days we risk overworking our muscles which will lead to fatigue and possibly injuries.
Make sure to take some rest days, if you are beginner more often cca. every two days.
Sleep
Sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass or if you want to be ready for your personal training session the next day. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release.
Low quality sleep has been linked with health conditions like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and mental illness. While poor sleep is common among those with cardiovascular disease, some research indicates that poor sleep can be a contributing cause. Short sleep duration of less than seven hours is correlated with coronary heart disease and increased risk of death from coronary heart disease. Sleep duration greater than nine hours is also correlated with coronary heart disease, as well as stroke and cardiovascular events. So as you see, sleep is crucial part of muscle building, but too much sleep can actually bring you harm. Keep everything in moderation.
Nutrition
Nutrition is a critical part of health and development. Better nutrition is related to improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease), and longevity.
In humans, poor nutrition can cause deficiency related diseases such as blindness, anemia, scurvy, preterm birth, stillbirth and cretinism, or nutrient excess health-threatening conditions such as obesity and metabolic syndrome and such common chronic systemic diseases as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
By following these rules you can make a program in about half an hour. Sit down, make sure you have read everything and start writing.
COMPOUND EXCERCISES SHOULD BE DONE FIRST. Reason for that is you can lift more weights on them and they are working multiple muscle groups.
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All the information is from the trusted sources. I recommend to be careful and listen to your body, we are not doctors.
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