How a training programme is put together
When you set up a training plan, the coach proposes a week: which days, which session on each, the exercises and the sets. This is how that proposal is made, so you can change it knowing what you are changing.
The split follows the days
The first thing the programme reads is how many days you can actually keep. Not how many you would like to.
- Two or three days is full body every time. Each muscle gets trained two or three times a week, which is what most of the research agrees matters most, and a missed day costs you a third of the week rather than the whole of one body part.
- Four days is upper and lower, twice each, with a rest day between the pairs.
- Five days is upper and lower plus a full-body day - or, if you have trained for years, push, pull and legs followed by an upper and a lower day.
- Six days is push, pull and legs, twice. Only worth it if six days is a week you can keep for the whole block.
The setup leans low on days on purpose. A three-day programme you follow beats a five-day one you keep missing, and the plan can grow when the block ends.
Where the sets and reps come from
Each exercise in a session has a role. The first one or two are the main lifts - the big movements that use the most muscle. Then a secondary movement or two, then accessories for the smaller muscles.
- Getting stronger keeps the reps low on the main lifts - four sets of five - and the weight heavy. Accessories stay in the middle range.
- Building muscle sits in the middle - three sets of eight to twelve - where most of the evidence for growth is, and adds a set to the accessories.
- General fitness is a balanced version: three sets of eight on the main lifts, ten on the rest.
- Training for a sport keeps the main lifts a little lower and ends each session with ten minutes of conditioning, in the mode your sport uses where it can tell.
If you are new to lifting, every exercise is capped at three sets for the first block. The fourth set is volume nobody new needs yet. If you train with no equipment, every rep range moves up a band, because you cannot add weight to a push-up.
The exercises themselves come from a directory, chosen by where you train: a gym gives barbells and machines; home with some kit gives dumbbells and bands; no kit gives bodyweight movements. Full-body days rotate through the pool so Monday, Wednesday and Friday are not the same session three times. Anything you asked for more of gets one extra exercise in the session that already trains it.
How the weight goes up
A programme without a rule for adding weight is a list of exercises. The setup proposes one and you can rewrite it:
- New to it: add a small step - 2.5 kg or 5 lb - whenever every set hits its reps.
- Getting stronger: the same, and if a lift stalls two weeks running, drop about ten percent and build back up. Stalls are information, not failure.
- Everyone else: add a rep each week; when every set is at the top of its range, add weight and start again at the bottom.
The first week is for finding the numbers, not testing them. Start with a weight you could do about three more reps with. If the block is five weeks or longer, the last week is a lighter one - about sixty percent of the sets - which is when the body actually catches up on the work.
What it will not do
- It does not write a programme that contradicts something a clinician has told you. If a rule on your file says no lifting until you are cleared, nothing is proposed and the setup says which rule.
- It does not override a programme a clinician or physio has set. Those are written down as given.
- It does not propose loads. The weight on the bar is yours, found in the first week.
- It does not know your injuries unless you have told it. If something hurts, the plan is yours to change, and the coach will fit around anything you record.
- It is not a coach standing next to you. Form, warm-up and how a lift feels on the day are things a programme cannot see.
The plan is yours to change at any time from the training room, one day or one exercise at a time, and the block review at the end reads how it went before proposing the next.