Programming your workouts

Touching on a subject that I enjoy about training I feel we can get stuck following the same routines, same exercise selection and evidently making zero progress

Now how I design my workouts is very personal they’re relative to daily goals, physique weak points, mental state of the day and recovery rate for the next session. Below I will outline my points of creating a great training session but this is personal remember, if you have similar goals great, but you may not have similar target area points nor mental state or recovery than I.. remember this

So to be clear my goals for this coming competitive season are compete at 212lbs thats a 4lb increase on last year, improve my posterior shots (back,glutes hams) by adding density and 3Dimensional looking muscle

so in to planning a weekly routine

firstly goals, what I want to achieve, secondly priorities on rest between workouts and before certain workouts and then thirdly body part selection.

My current training plan is outlayed on my first blog but I will show you again.

Day 1 Chest Triceps

Day 2 Back Width Biceps

Day 3 Rest

Day 4 Legs Quad Dominant

Day 5 Delts Arms

Day 6 Back Thickness Glutes Hams (RDLs)

Day 7 Rest

I have given special priority to the posterior group as explained above by adding more overall volume to that area through frequency per week its proven more frequency to any area will create enough stress to grow so I have split them nicely in the week. My recovery rate is usually good I usually taper off on the 3rd day of training so I will never train any longer than 3 days straight without rest. Day 6 (saturday) is a quiter day in the gym so i’ve placed that workout there so I can rest and prepare for a big workout. In this off season I would stick my refeed on a Saturday another reason to put this here for optimal recovery and growth then Sunday rest

I plan my sessions on the day, everything is goal relative but one day we could step up to the deadlifting platform feeling mobile, mentally focused and other days have some lower back niggles with poor sleep the night before… you ain’t deadlifting!!! so think about every aspect of programming

Once we have found a suitable programme for our needs its comes to exercise selection, the fun bit. I will outline my selections and explain my reasonings hopefully guiding you to your next workout

So, to the selection, I will take chest as my example through this

First exercise, I’m looking for 1/2 exercises per body part that give me the best bang for my buck!! The exercise I feel Work really well and being fresh at the start I can really push hard and see some real progress in these movements through strength and hypertrophy

For example chest I like to stick to fixed machines , flat press , incline machine / smith press these exercises I’ve found to give me the best results in strength and progression, the fixed machines are great for more stable movement Putting less stress on the stabilising muscle, so for this exercise the shoulders are fresh not burnt out from db work or free movement exercise. Now this is all subjective, Ive started some workouts on the flat bench or barbell incline its all goal relative and how we feel on the day but for most I stick to the fix weights. I would usually complete 1-2 straight working sets.

Second exercise Im looking for something to really isolate and squeeze to crap outta my chest, we’ve hit the numbers on the first exercise now i’m looking for that chest to pop. I would be looking at a chest cable fly, DB fly, slow tensive press ups or using bands accommodated resistance creating a nice constant load of weight on there chest I would usually use a rest pause or drop set technique in this set working for 1-3 sets

3rd exercise my chest is feeling big, full and a little tired, this is where I would implement an exercise to assist the secondary group of muscle (in this scenario triceps) Bench dips, bodyweight dips, close grip press ups compound related to assist the chest to maintain good tension for growth. 2-4 sets completed here

4th exercise would be back to loading the chest working with exercises I find give me a great feel and move well (similar to ex1) Incline iso press, seated chest press for example. Your warm you’re ready 1-3 working sets throwing in some rest pause, supersets or drop sets for extra workload and stress

5th and 6th sets I would isolate the tricep exercises that lengthen and shorten the muscle for example an overhead movement and pushdown movement each set would be an advanced technique, forced reps, partials and drops to fining the job 2-4 set on each

And thats It…..

10-14 sets of real intense working weights. As said previously i’m an advocate of low volume training to include more frequent sessions. With the right nutrition and recovery is shown highly successful.

This workout would be my typical Chest Tricep, traditional bodybuilding split. Ive recently used push pull legs and upper lower splits which have worked great but the selection would still have the same ethos .

Il touch on all subjects in this blog and give you my thoughts and reasoning, what you do with them is down to you but give it try and id love to hear your thoughts and how you’re doing. I love this sport and love to see others succeed so please get in touch!!

Thanks

Marty