If you want to learn how to create your own strength training program, you have landed on the right page.
Every human is unique in their own way. The same can be said about a person’s goals, genetics, stimulus, motivations, likes and dislikes. Of course, that translates to working out.
One exercise can be perfect for one person while terrible or even painful for another. Does that mean they should both do that exercise, even if their goal is the same? The answer is no.
As each individual is different, so should their training approach. While it is easy to go online and find a workout program that fits your needs, eventually you will need to branch out and find something different to keep making progress in the gym. That process can be demotivating, which is the last thing you want when trying to be fitter and healthier.
The best thing would be to have a nutritionist develop a diet for your needs, do medical tests to understand what part of your body is lagging and how much you can push, and have a personal fitness coach to assist you through your body transformation. Of course that is the best thing. It is also the most expensive one and, frankly, something a vast majority simply don’t have time to.
We encourage you to find professional help any time it is needed. But if you want to simply understand how to create your own strength training program, without having to rely on finding the perfect match online from influencer X or fitness coach Z, then this is the place!
For this guide on how to create your own strength training program, I will be writing from personal experience. No, I am not a fitness coach, although I have taken part in many different sports, been to countless gyms, talked with dozens of different coaches from around the world, and most importantly I have been writing about fitness for the past few years – enough that gives me the confidence to tell you how to create your own strength training program.
The Basics – How to Create Your Own Strength Training
Simply brushing through the basics as this, hopefully, you are already aware of. Nevertheless, the first thing you should ask and answer yourself is “what is your goal?”
For the purpose of this article, I will separate people into two categories only:
- Lose weight
- Build muscle/get stronger/get bigger
Know that you can lose weight and build muscle, although it is quite difficult and it requires more patience and understanding of diet and exercise selection – it is what some people call lean bulking.
Related: 12 Foods That Build Muscle And Burn Fat Simultaneously
However, if you want to simply lose weight, your path will be different from the beginning compared to people who want to simply get bigger and build muscle.
As I said, this is just a brush over the basics. When it comes to the basics of nutrition:
- Losing weight = be in a caloric deficit (500 calories or more)
- Build muscle (etc) = be in a caloric surplus
3 Important Rules on How to Eat to Gain Muscle
Now that you know how your diet should be, more or less, according to your goals, let’s get to what is really important and why you clicked on this link: how to create your own strength training program.
Type of Training Split
If you are not a beginner, you already know what kind of split you want to have for your workouts. Mainly, there are four ways to split a workout:
Full-body workouts are usually directed at beginners. Because of the so-called newbie gains, in which people who have no experience in strength training have a rapid increase in muscle gain compared to someone who has been lifting for longer.
That leaves you, intermediate or experienced athlete with 3 options, although the Bro split is not optimal, in which you train a different body muscle each day, as you should be working out the same muscle group at least twice a week to see results.
Depending on how often you would like/can train every week, you should pick either upper/lower body split, or the push/pull/leg split.
The upper body split is self-explanatory in which you either train your upper body with some exercises or you do lower body movements.
The push/pull/leg workout would focus on push movements, pulling movements, and leg exercises. Push exercises focus primarily on the shoulders, chest and triceps. Pulling exercises target the biceps, back and forearms. Legs are anything related to lower body movements.
Honestly, pick one that you know you could perform twice a week and go for it.
First Couple of Exercises
First of all, even if your goal is to lose weight, do not do cardio at the beginning of your session. That is a big no as it will tire your muscles when it comes to lifting the big weights.
The first exercise is also one of the most important exercises of the entire strength training program you will create. Why is that? Because that is when you are fresh and your muscles can lift the most they will be able to the entire day.
Golden rule for the first exercise: choose a compound exercise that will target your preferred muscle.
Notice that another important word in the sentence above is “compound.” If you want to focus on your biceps, for example, you shouldn’t begin your training session with a dumbbell curl. Yes, it’s great for your biceps, but you should leave isolation movement for the end of the set (more on that later).
Compound exercises will get you in shape, recruit most muscles in one go, allow you to move heavier weights, burn more calories, and recruit more muscle fibres, hence building more muscle. If your goal is to lose weight, this is still optimal as cardio is not the best idea for losing weight, but lifting weights is.
For example, if you want to grow your chest, you should probably begin with the barbell bench press, the best well-rounded movement for growing your pecs, instead of doing flyes which is an isolation chest exercise.
Here is a quick list of compound exercises that you should be looking for when creating your own strength training program depending on which muscle group you want to focus more:
- Chest = bench press, chest dips, push-ups
- Back = deadlift, pull-up, bent-over row, kettlebell swings
- Biceps = chin-ups
- Triceps = Dips, close-grip bench press, diamond push-ups
- Shoulders = overhead press, Arnold press, pike push-up
- Glutes = barbell hip thrusts, box jump, Romanian deadlifts
- Legs = squats, Bulgarian split squats, lunges
This list above is not finite. You can search online simply by typing “compound exercises for X” and see what you can find. If it is an exercise you enjoy, or something new you would like to try out, add it to your program.
Choose at least two compound exercises to begin every training session of your own strength training program. Try to keep a majority of the exercises you do as a compound movement. If you have a total of 5 exercises for your training session today, make sure 3 of them are compound.
Isolation Exercises to Include
Next on how to create your own strength training program are the isolation exercises. These movements will focus on a single joint, meaning they are targeted at specifically one muscle.
These exercises are usually done to focus even more on the muscle group that you want to get stronger/bigger. Many bodybuilders like to use isolation exercises as a finisher to get that last push on their muscles.
Isolation exercises can be beneficial to fatigue your intended muscle and force its growth.
Pick one or two isolation exercises for your session. Some advanced lifters pick more than one and group them in a superset, in which you do two exercises without resting in between them, but usually without conflicting muscles. You could also choose to do drop sets.
Here are some isolation exercises that you could add to your own strength training program based on which muscle it targets:
- Chest = flyes, cable flye, dumbbell pullover
- Back = back extension machine, lat pulldown machine, facepulls
- Biceps = dumbbell curls, preacher curls, concentration curls
- Triceps = skull crushers, rope pushdowns, dumbbell kickbacks
- Shoulders = lateral raise, cable shoulder Y raise, front raise
- Legs = leg press, leg extension, Nordic hamstring curl
What about the glutes? Well, the glutes are hardly an isolation exercise as it usually involves the lower body in some way. In fact, many people opt not to train their glutes specifically as it will be targeted with most of the heavy leg movements such as the barbell back squat.
How Many Sets and Reps?
You’ve picked your 4-8 exercises you will be doing next time you hit the gym. You’ve chosen carefully the first exercise to lift the heaviest possible and recruit that muscle group you want to improve the most. Now let’s talk about how many sets and reps.
This is the most freely part of the workout. Since this article is aimed at giving a general direction and the best option available without knowing your exact needs, here is how many sets and reps you should be doing in your own strength training program.
- Compound exercises: 2-4 sets, 4-6 reps
- Isolation exercises: 3 sets, 6-12 reps (if you want, do the last set to failure on isolation exercises)
To get the best deal, choose a weight that is challenging, about 75-85% of your 1-rep-max. If you want to progress, increase in load (how heavy you lift), rarely in number of sets.
When it comes to resting, it highly depends on which exercise you are doing. A good rule of thumb is to rest between 30-90 seconds between sets.
What About Cardio and Abs Exercises?
Usually the people who are adamant about cardio and abs exercises when it comes to creating your own training program are looking for a six-pack look, or at least to look leaner.
Focusing on strength training will help you lose weight. And losing weight is how you make your abs show off, not with tons of ab workouts. For that, you need to learn how to drop your body fat percentage to low enough levels to see your abs.
Ultimate Guide On How to Get Shredded – Steps to Lower Your Body Fat Percentage Every Time
However, you should still incorporate some kind of cardio and abs into your workout, of course.
As mentioned earlier, if you are going to the gym, you should keep your cardio training to the end of the session, unless you are using the treadmill to warm up.
If you want to add ab exercises, I would suggest doing them last in the training session, but before your cardio. Good exercises for cardio and abs are:
- Abs: hollow body rock, L-sit, Russian twist
- Cardio: burpee, Stairmaster, swimming
Related: 22 Bodyweight Abs Exercises Ranked Worst to Best
Related: Best Cardio For Fat Loss
However, if you don’t want to tire out your body when it comes to cardio training, the best tip I can give you is to walk. Walking is by far the best way to lose weight and show off your abs. You will be burning off calories without putting your muscles in stress and with a very low risk of injury, which means you can keep doing it every single day.
Workout Example
After taking all of that in, this is an example of a workout that a person looking to lose weight and get his back stronger would look like:
* Note: this would be in the push/pull/leg split workout.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Pull-Up | 3 | 6 |
| Kettlebell Swings | 4 | 6 |
| Chin-Up | 3 | 5 |
| Facepulls | 3 | 8 |
| Barbell Curl | 4 | 6 |
| Hollow Body Rock | 3 | 6 |
| Stairmaister | 1 | 30 minutes |
Now go on and create your own strength training program.
How Long Should You Do This Workout?
Okay, you’ve created your own training program based on what you want. Should you keep doing it for months on end? NO!
Your results won’t appear if you are not consistent, but you will also plateau at some point, which means you need to completely overhaul your training and create a new one.
Maintain this training program for 6-8 weeks then create a new one with different exercises to keep making gains in the gym.
Did you enjoy this? Try it out for yourself and see if the results are what you are expecting.
Quick Recap
To create your own strength training program, the steps are:
- choose your diet – caloric surplus or deficit
- choose a training split – upper/lower body, or push/pull/leg are the most traditional
- choose compound movements that target your preferred muscle first
- leave isolation movements for the later part of the session
- do abs exercises if you want after your strength training sets
- add cardio as the last thing you do in the workout
- define sets and reps – 3 sets of 6-12 is optimal
- change your training program after 6-8 weeks
Read More: How to Create Your Own Diet Plan from Scratch
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- Create Your Own Strength Training Program: Alex Green on Pexels
