Strength training workouts are the new hype. Everyone wants to be strong, and for good reason. Participating regularly in strength training workouts will come with a plethora of positive side effects. Bigger muscles, stronger body, and improved health are only scratching the surface.

Most people think they must pay some “professional” thousands of dollars per month to get strong. The truth is a lot of the times the professional you hired isn’t strong themselves and are just figuring out as they go. Believe me after almost a decade in the industry it is true. In this article I am going to break down the basics of making YOUR OWN strength training workout so you can save some money and re-invest in yourself.

Key points

• You will need structure to design a successful workout program.
• Following a systematic approach to factors such as goal setting, exercise selection, and progression is vital.
• In order for you to reap the benefits of good programming you need to maximize recovery.

In order to design the best workout program to improve things such as strength, size, athleticism, or general health you need a plan.

If you follow my strength training guidlines, you yourself can create workouts that make you bigger, stronger, or more fit.

So, lets get into this.

Determine your goal

This is the first thing you must decide. A workout program with no goal is like shooting darts the dark.

I have broken down how to create SMART strength training goals here. In the meantime, here are some common goals my clients tend to gravitate towards.

Increase strength

If this is your main goal then you’re going to have to train heavy, often, and with a clear progression. You are going to have to target key movement patterns with big compound movements.

Think squats, deadlifts, bench press, etc. We will get into this more in exercise selection below.

Gain muscle size

To attain this goal generally it is best practice to use a combination of heavy and light weights to accumulate steadily increasing volume which has been shown to have the biggest effect of muscle hypertrophy (getting gains bro).

You will also need to be mindful of your diet as you will NEED to be in a caloric surplus to see any results.

Increase Power

Power is the ability to generate larges amounts of force in a short amount of time. This comes in handy when wanting to be more athletic. You will need to train a combination of heavy and fast to elicit these gains.

Modalities such as squats, sprints, jumps, and throws are best here.

General health

Well you my friend are going to have some fun combining the three goals stated above in a delicate balance. This will give you the best of all worlds. Size strength and power are all crucial to being an optimally functioning human.

Each one of these goals wil require their own unique training parameters. to get you started I outline my favorite rep schemes for these goals here.

Strength Training Workout Split

Now that you know what you want to work on you need to decide how you are going to break up your training. I have a more intensive explanation on how to break up your training, but here are some popular options.

The most common workout splits are:

Full body 2-3 days per week: this is usually regarded as best for beginner to intermediate lifters. This can be debated as there are many elite athletes that participate in full body training as well.

For this split you pick 3-5 compound lifts that hit all major muscle groups or movement patterns and possibly some accessories. Complete all exercises 3-4x per week. It is great for weight loss, strength, and size

Push-pull: generally broken up into 4-6 days per week. This split you work all of the muscles on the posterior chain of the body (hamstrings, glutes, back, biceps) one day and all the muscles on the front of the body (quads, chest, shoulders, triceps) on another day.

This a favorite for powerbuilding as it allows you to get in a big lift then punish all of the accessory lifts into oblivion for radical size and strength gains.

Upper-lower: similar to push pull, but instead you alternate upper and lower. This can be used for any goal.

Famous “Bro split”: stereotypical quads, hamstring, chest, back, ect all designated their own day. While it gets a lot of flack for being utilized by your gym bros who stare in the mirror doing bicep curls it does have some validity even if only for a short period of time.

Pick your exercises

Exercise selection is what people spend in my opinion too much time trying to figure out. When I am programming for my clients I break the body down into its most basic movements; push, pull, squat, hinge, single leg, and rotate. Pick one or more exercises that fall into each of these categories and include them 1-3 times per week.

Doing this will allow you to take a strategic and balanced approach to your training that won’t land you in a doctor’s office with – insert injury – because you decided to bench press every time you went to the gym.

There can be a nuance to exercise selection dependent upon what goals you set for yourself. For example, if you want to compete in powerlifting you will need to bias 3 out of the aforementioned 6 categories. In response you will need to compensate in a way to stay balanced, and not hinder progress in the big three.

I go into more detail on picking the right exercises for your specific goals in a different article.

Exercise progression

Ok you have your self an almost perfect program. The next thing you need to ask yourself is how will you improve.

Exercise of any type will only work with the use of the overload principle.

Basically you need to consistently challenge yourself to see results. If you don’t follow this principle you will end up making good progress in the beginning then quickly stall and make no further progress.

Here are some strategies you can use to progress your workouts.

Increase weight

This is the most obvious choice. This is great for increasing strength size and power. To do this you need to gradually increase weight over time. In the beginning its may be 5-10lb every week, intermediates may only progress 2.5lb per week, as you get advanced weight can only go up every other week or so. At that point you will be employing more complex strategies for progression.

Increase reps

Another good option is keeping the weight the same but increasing the reps over a certain period of time. This method is great for gaining muscle. It could look something like 4×10 bench press for 8 reps on week one and increase 2 reps each week for 4 weeks then start over with a heavier weight.

Increase time under tension

Very similar to increasing reps. What makes it different is the fact that you don’t have increase the reps you can increase how long it takes to complete each rep. For example, taking 2s to lower the weight and increasing time to taking 4s to lower the weight. This is great for many goals especially strength and size gains.

I have laid out a comprehensive guide to exercise progression here if you want more insight on how to design the perfect program for yourself.

Smart rest days

The most important yet also the most neglected step in program design is recovery. You only make gains when you rest. Working out is nothing more that stress on the body. Without proper nutrition and rest you will run your body into the ground make no progress and possibly even regressing.

I have the ultimate guide to recovery in another article, but here are some key points.

Eat

You need to properly fuel your body for maximum results. Starving yourself or eating junk food will not get you anywhere with any goal.

Optimal intake of carbs, proteins and fats are crucial to make any gains and for proper recovery.

Carbs are not evil they are vital to performance.

It may be obvious you need protein as it is talked about more than most macronutrients, but it is not required in such massive amounts as popular western culture says it is.

Lastly, fats are vital to proper bodily function and the synthesis of key steroid and metabolism hormones. (yes you naturally produce steroids use then to your advantage)

Sleep

Getting in 6-8 hours of sleep is mandatory if you want to see results fast. Something to consider is how much sleep you can realistically get vs how much training volume you schedule per week. These two should be directly related.

In other words, the less sleep you get the less volume you should include per week. Training heavy compound lifts, a ton of accessory movements, a full work schedule, and all while on only 4-5hrs of sleep is a quick way to get sick and or injured.

Move around

Lastly, the last thing you want to do on a recovery day is nothing. I know it may seem counterintuitive to exercise on your day off, but hear me out.

Active recovery has been shown to reduce muscle soreness and improve recovery much more quickly than sitting still. Things such as playing a sport, swimming, light cardio, or even just foam rolling will go very far.

There you go. Follow these steps and you will have a solid strength training workout for yourself. All done without dropping a couple stacks on an incompetent personal trainer.