Once you’ve been training for a while, you will be tempted to plan your own workout programme – after all, you know yourself better than anyone. While I think everyone should get help from a personal trainer or strength coach, I fully understand that your budget or curiosity may drive you to write your own training routine.
However, there are some common pitfalls that come with designing your own training programme. When programming for yourself, it’s easy to take certain factors for granted and over/under-estimate ourselves. These tips will help you design your training programme to the highest standard.
1. Set Clear Goals
Before you can plan any journey, you need to know where you’re heading. This applies to workout programmes too! Your training goal has a huge effect on key training elements such as intensity, volume, and exercise selection. Without these, your plan will have no structure.
Action:
- Before you write your workout plan, choose one major goal that you’d like to work towards for the next 3-6 months at least.
- Make a note of what the key steps are in reaching that goal. Include these in your workout routine.
- You can repeat this with one or two secondary goals, but don’t get greedy.
2. Have One Shorter Workout
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: every programme should feature one workout that’s quick to perform. This workout should also be a little less daunting; the workout shouldn’t hinge on you bringing your A-game.
This workout will be a lifesaver when motivation takes a hit or when you’re going through a busy period at work. By planning for these occasions it’s much easier to stay on track.
Read more about including shorter workouts here.
3. Don’t Forget Rest and Recovery
This works on two levels – make sure your workout programme schedules rest within the session AND within the training block.
It’s easy to get excited and promise yourself the world when it comes to planning your training, but even the most enthusiastic gym-goer will eventually be limited by recovery ability and time. If you design a strength training programme that requires 2-5 minutes of rest between each set, then that will eat into your training time way more than something that only needs 90 seconds of recovery. You need to take this into account when designing the session.
Likewise, if you’re planning to do 6 sets of squats a week for 6 months, you could eventually end up with cranky knees if you don’t plan some lower intensity weeks.
Action:
- When planning your workout, leave space in the plan for some estimated rest periods.
- Keep an open mind to changing the plan on a day when you’re feeling beaten up, or schedule time every 4 weeks to assess whether you need to take things down a notch.
- Aim to prevent burnout/injury rather than trying to manage it once it’s too late.
4. Do Things You Like
We’re often told that suffering in training builds character. There’s a belief that doing the things you don’t like will often give you greater results than doing things you enjoy. There is definitely some truth to this, as only doing what you like is a sure-fire way to create gaps in your training.
However, if your training becomes overly boring or tortuous, I can guarantee you will end up dreading those sessions. No matter how invested you are in your training, this WILL increase the risk of you quitting. That extra risk is not worth the benefits that come from doing things you don’t like.
Action:
- Make sure every day of your programme includes something you like.
- Don’t allocate any single day as the “boring day”. This is an easy way to plan a workout you’ll never actually do.
5. Do Things You Need
Unfortunately, you can’t ONLY do the things you like. This will stop you from getting out of your comfort zone, which is crucial for progressively overloading your training stressors. It’s important to ask yourself exactly what you need to reach your goals, and then take a really hard look at your programme to see if you’re ticking those boxes.
Action
- Compare your programme draft to your initial goals. Have you included enough of the key components needed to reach that goal?
- If you realise something is missing, ask yourself if there’s a good reason for leaving it out.
- Remember that no programme will have everything in it; don’t beat yourself up trying to include everything.
Summary
No single workout programme is perfect. Training programmes should overlap and change gradually, meaning that if you have regrets at the end of one training block, you can always make it right in the next one. The more training programmes you write, the more you will learn.
I have been designing training programmes for people for over 12 years. If you’d like some assistance with your training, I have a limited number of spaces for additional personal training clients – in person or online. Check out these testimonials and fill out the contact form there if you’d like to know more about my services.