How to set up a training programme
This will be a rough guide as to how you would very first go about deciding how to set up a programme for yourself.
The first question that needs to be addressed is: How advanced into your training age are you?
As a rule of thumb….
Less than a year training = beginner - novice
1-2 years training = intermediate - trained
2-5 years training = well trained
5+ years = advanced lifter
Once you have put yourself into one of these categories, this can guide you to work out a training split.
Three important factors to consider when training for hypertrophy (growth):
Volume(sets x reps)
Frequency (how often)
Intensity (e.g., train like a wimp or train hardcore)
As a beginner you will likely not have any “weak” body parts but rather need to just grow everywhere and learn how to train properly. For this reason, I would recommend doing full body or upper/lower workouts (we will do a whole blog about this later)… This will mean the frequency (number of times per week) of muscles hit will be high.
As a novice/beginner your ability to train to failure when training may not be great due to simply lacking training age. Therefore, to meet the required stimulus to grow, it may be a good idea to have slightly higher volume e.g., 3-4 sets per exercise until you gain that true intensity and accuracy needed. But most importantly in this phase this is where you learn to love training, so have fun with it. Learn what exercises you get on well with and what you don’t.
During this period its a great time to have fun with your training, trying out different exercises but its important to make sure you really focus on form and execution and start to develop the basic fundamentals that will then set up for your development. During this period we strongly recommend having the basic compound movements structured in your workout such as barbell squat, deadlift/block pulls & DB chest press.. the exercise will help develop core strength that will allow you to excel into other lifts.
As an intermediate lifter again, it’s likely you need to continue to grow everywhere but will start to notice your body development and muscles potentially showing strong/weak points to your physique. By this point form and accuracy should also have been close to mastered. From a recovery and frequency standpoint something like an UPPER/LOWER split may still be suited but you may also look to develop a more refined workout pattern such as push pull legs or the 4 day split (see how to programme blog posts for more info) depending on your individual progress & physique development.
When you get to a more well-trained level of training it may become evident that some body parts may need more attention that others. Most of the time this is solely down to performing exercises incorrectly and the improvement of execution alone should aid the potential weaker body parts. However, if after 12 months of consistent improved accuracy, spot on recovery and nutrition they don’t improve it may be worth looking at programming a more “specialised” programme. Potentially push, pull, legs variation with rest days around weaker body parts, or if posterior is weaker a variation of push, pull, legs, density. At this point it would be extremely beneficial for you to have been taking regular progress pictures in order to reflect upon your progress over a 6 month period ( arbitrary number ) and be able to critically analyse what has gone well and what hasn’t. Then use this to make a plan moving forward.
Finally, advanced lifters we could class as professional athletes or those that have been training consistently for years with very refined physique that require fine tuning…. At this point it's likely you just need to refine body parts. (it’t important to note that the. vast majority of individual do not reach this level and will forever stay at the well trained developed)
As you get stronger you may need lower volume and due to such high level of accuracy you will be smashed and need time to recover after even rock bottom volume of 1-2 sets per exercise. So, splitting body parts and allowing for lots of recovery could be a way to go. This is often referred to as bro/pro split. E.g chest, back and traps, delts, arms, legs.
So, that’s the first blog post about training wrapped up ! Hope this was helpful to you :)
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