- Identify your specific goal; whether it be hypertrophy, strength, sports performance, endurance or aesthetics you need to understand that exercise selection, volume and RPE (Rate of perceived exertion) will change pending on your specific goals.
- Identify a routine you can stick too, there is no point having 6 workouts if you have 4 days to achieve them. This may mean lengthening or shortening workouts to make them fit your specific schedule.
- Exercise selection: One of the biggest misconceptions is people believing they need to do 20 different movements per workout. Keep it simple and select 4-8 Exercises you connect with and can do comfortably and well. Although variety is great, its kind of pointless to set up 4 exercises that don’t hit the designated muscle group like you know other similar exercises do. Each person’s structure and experience is different and preference of exercise should be considered.
- Deciphering sets/reps (volume): Again, this falls back to specific goals, however, be aware that ALL exercise is better than no exercise. As a rule of thumb:
- Toning/endurance – Higher reps with less intensity (e.g., 20 reps)
- Strength – Lower reps with a large focus on Heavy Intense lift (e.g., 3-8reps)
- Hypertrophy – Time under tension, slow tempo reps with high volume (e.g., 12reps, 5.1.5 tempo)
- Sports specific training – Will vary pending intensity of the movement.
- Core/Cardio/Cooldown: The 3 specific Cs that should be incorporated in your program. Once you finish your specific lifts, look after the heart, body and begin your cooldown to get recovered and ready to go again.
At the end of the day, when it comes to a successful training plan it will all come down to your effort and consistency. Regularly training at a high level, regardless of reps will allow your body to adapt and become a better version of itself.
