Do you ever have those moments where you walk up to an exercise machine or weights and find yourself staring at it for way too long? You might be thinking to yourself, “What exercises should I do today?” Or maybe you look at the people around you that you inspire to look like and think, “How do they come up with their workouts?” Or you see personal trainers at the gym and think, “I can’t afford them.” Well, that can all change by creating workouts for yourself. And yes, before you say it…you can definitely create a workout plan for yourself, you just need a little guidance.
7 Steps on How to Make a Workout Plan
What is your goal?
Your goal is going to determine which exercises you need to build into your workout plan to make sure it is successful. This step will make you think of if you want to strengthen a certain muscle or body part, if you are looking to drop some pounds, if you want to work on being faster, if you are wanting to put on muscle mass, etc.
How many days?
Next, it is important to figure out what is realistic, in regards, to how many times you can work out in a week. If you are limited to just a few times a week, then you are most likely going to be doing full-body workouts each workout because you will have plenty of rest days between workouts to do so. If you can work out more than that, then you will want to break up your workouts into movement patterns. For example, one day is pulling, one day is pushing, one day is hinging, one day is squatting, one day is rotating movements, etc.
What equipment do you have?
It is important to know what you have access to. If you work out at a gym that is pretty busy, then it might be best to stick to one area of the gym and utilize that section as best as you can, instead of trying to hop all over the place. If you only have access to a few different sets of free weights, then you will want to build in exercises that are most effective with those free weights, etc.
Figure out your rep scheme.
To figure out how many reps you’ll need to perform for each exercise, you need to think back to step one. What is your goal? If strength is your goal, then you should focus on a low number of reps for more sets, like six sets of three to five reps. If fat loss is your goal, then high-reps like three sets of 15 to 20 reps work well. A great method for this is circuits.
Choose your exercises.
We have great workouts right here on our blog, or you can search Google for some tried and true exercises to throw in your plan or even follow people on social media to get inspired.
Constantly switch things up.
No need to get too crazy here, but it is important to switch things up every 12-14 weeks. This doesn’t mean you have to completely change your whole workout routine. This can mean things simply like, instead of back squats do front squats, instead of regular bench press do a wide bench press, etc.
Fuel yourself properly.
Achieving your goals doesn’t just start and stop during your workouts. You also need to make sure you are staying on top of your goals outside of your workouts too. This includes eating properly and using the best supplements. Supplements can make a big change in your workouts, like giving you that extra push or helping your muscles to recover. We highly recommend taking a pre-workout and a recovery supplement, like POW and RESCUE.
