The Three-Step Workout Creation Process I Use for My Clients

Have you ever wondered how to create a gym workout routine? 

What exercises are best for results?

How many exercises should you do in a workout session?

And how many times a week should you lift weights for maximum muscle growth and toning?

Well here's my simple process for you:

Step 1: Choose your training goal

First and foremost, the creation of the program depends on the client's goals, as this informs the weekly structure, the exercises, the reps and basically *everything* else.

 This is what you want to achieve from your workouts. Is it muscle growth (hypertrophy), strength, or general fitness? Hint- if you want to 'tone up', your goal is muscle growth.

For general fitness, you should do resistance training 2-3 x per week 

For muscle growth/toning and strength, you should be doing weights 3 x per week if you're a beginner and even up to 5 times if you're more advanced. This also depends on your preferred amount of training days

What should your 'training split' look like?

This refers to the way you split up your sessions across the week. This could be legs, upper body, full body, push (aka using your pushing muscles like chest, triceps and quads), or pull (using your pulling muscle like your back muscles and hamstrings) or other combinations of sessions. 

Common splits include:

• 2 lower body days + 2 upper body days = 4 total sessions in the week
• 2 push + 2 pull days = 4 total sessions in the week
• the bro split -> upper body push/ upper body pull/ legs = 3-6 sessions in the week (depending on whether 1-2 sessions are done of each)
• the full-body split: full body 3 x per week with a rest day in between each

If you're training 3 x per week or less, your goal is general health, hypertrophy or strength -> I recommend training full body sessions

If 4-5 x per week -> consider split body sessions (eg upper / lower) - but this structure is generally reserved for more advanced trainees due to better recovery ability 

Okay so now, after you've chosen your goal and how many days per week you'd like to train. Onto step 2...

Step 2: Exercise Selection

First, pick 4-6 exercises to form the bulk of the session. Less for beginners, more for more advanced trainees.

These should be compound lifts (this means multi-joint), as they give you more bang for your buck. You use more muscle and you do more work.

These are put at the start of the session because they're harder, more exhaustive on your muscles and central nervous system, and it's more important to use good form for these. Form breakdown on a squat is much more dangerous than form breakdown on a bicep curl.

The choice of exercise depend on the client’s physique goal, but they should be complementary to one another across the program. Eg squats, deadlifts and hip thrusts will feature across the week, as opposed to just three variations of squats.

Next, if time permits, you can add 1-2 optional “bonus” extras to do when you have more time & motivation - these are things like abs, or more isolation exercises for body parts you want to work on more. 

Isolation exercises include: bicep curls, shoulder flys, tricep extensions, ab crunches and other 'easier' exercises.

Step 3: Reps and Sets.

Assign reps & sets for each exercise based on your goal 

I usually prefer to assign strength and hypertrophy reps for the compound exercises at the start of the session, and then higher reps for the isolation exercises at the end of the session. 

Eg: squats for 4 x 8 as exercise #1 then bicep curls 2-3 sets x 15 at the end

As a general rule of thumb:

• Higher reps, muscular endurance 15 reps+
• Mid reps, muscle growth 8-12
• Low reps, strength 3-6

Please note there is a continuum here with a lot of overlap between sections, and all reps range can improve other factors (size, strength, endurance) to a certain degree - it’s not black and white.

I hope this was helpful- don’t forget to save it for your workout planning 😉