How to Design a Gym Training Program

Designing your own gym training program will save you money over the option of recruiting a personal trainer, in addition to providing you with valuable insight into the workings of your own body. Designing a routine program is not a difficult task, and before long, you will be making steady progress toward your goals.

Things You'll Need

  • Pen and paper
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Instructions

    • 1

      Determine how many days per week you can reliably get to the gym. Be conservative, aiming to never miss a training day, even if that means training only two or three times a week.

    • 2

      Decide on a weekly training split, ensuring that all major muscle groups in your body are worked at least once a week. A good sample split would be "back and biceps" on Monday, "chest and triceps" on Wednesday and "legs and abdominals" on Friday

    • 3

      Select two large, compound (multi-joint) movements for each day of your training plan. These major movements include the squat, deadlift, good-morning bend, rows, bench press, pullups (pulldowns), pushups and dips.

    • 4

      Select two minor auxiliary movements for each day of your training plan. These movements include isolation exercises such as curls, tricep kickbacks, calf raises, lateral raises and the like.

    • 5

      Choose a rep scheme for your plan. Generally you should aim to perform more reps (e.g. two or three sets of 15 per exercise) where looking to burn additional fat and fewer reps (e.g. five sets of five) where looking to build strength.