“Hmmmm, should I do chest all day Monday, and then add in some abs. Or no, I should do back and biceps and legs, then the rest of the week do abs and cardio. Wait should I……..” Let me stop you there my Spartan warrior! Having a solid work out schedule is imperative to having a great body. If you are working out the wrong muscles or not working them out enough, all your time in the gym will be a total waste of time. Today we will be discussing, how to not only organize your individual workout, but the reason why you are working out and how to be the most successful in the months you put in.
First off, lets get the actual workout out of the way. When exercising, you want to be as fluid as possible in order to maintain cohesion throughout each workout. First you want to warm up for around 5- 10 minutes depending on what type of exercise you are participating in. For instance, if it is leg day, your warm up should be directly geared towards warming up your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calf’s. An example of a perfect leg day warm up is 5 – 10 minutes on the stair climber, at a light to moderate intensity. Next you would want to organize what kind of exercises you are doing, for the sake of staying consistent we will utilize the example of leg day. You would want to push the bigger and more difficult exercises towards the beginning of your workout (due to your body having optimal energy then) and the more isolated, easier workouts to the end. For example:
EXERCISE REPS SETS WEIGHT REST
Squats 6 3 60% 1 - 1:30min
Walking Lunges 4x2 3 N/A 1 - 1:30min
Hamstring Curls 6 3 60% 1 - 1:30min
Wall Sit 20 sec 20 sec 3 N/A 1 - 1:30min
Calf Raises 12 3 N/A 1 -1:30min
As you can see, squats was the first exercise and calf raises was the last, with other necessary workouts sprinkled within them. The next aspects you want to plan are the number of reps you will do, the weight and how much rest in between each set you will allow yourself. Usually, you would want to stick to 3 sets (Unless of course you are a true Spartan Warrior and are doing my program!) but depending on your goals, you would want either high rep, low weight or high weight low rep. Also, a very under looked aspect of training is your rest time (Click here to go to my previous Blog about Rest). To lose the most weight during your workout, you want to keep the rest time as low as possible, and to build the most strength and power, you want to have a significant rest in between each set.
Now that each specific workout has been set up, we must now broaden our view points and look at the times we should train and how often we will participate in physical activity. Depending on if you are a beginner, intermediate and or advanced, everyone’s schedule will look different. For the sake of this example, we will discuss an intermediate’s fitness plan. An intermediate would be classified as someone who has experience in the gym, knows specific forms for more difficult exercises and has been generally consistent in his or her approach to physical fitness. This specific type of person will want to workout 4- 5 days a week and it would be beneficial to equip a push, pull, legs and cardio system. Once again, incorporating what we just discussed your week would look something like (Just an example of a workout plan):
DAY EXERCISE
Monday Push
Tuesday Pull
Wednesday Off
Thursday Legs
Friday Off
Saturday Cardio
Sunday Off
With this example, you see that there is 4 days on with one of each day being employed, for maximal gains, you would want to hit your muscles at least twice a week in order to take full advantage of PROTEIN SYNTHESIS.
To reiterate, and summarize what needs to be done in order to create the best program for yourself:
1. Understand what level of fitness you are in
2. Create the routine which offers balance to each muscle
3. Plan the specific exercises you will do on each day
4. Input some kind of activity even on your off days, but make sure that your workout days are consistently being completed
5. Allow proper rest (especially for beginners and lower intermediate warriors)
6. Put your plan on paper so that you have something physical and tangible to look at
If you want the best exercise program on the market, which utilizes your personal fitness level, your calculated strength and even your biological body type, click the link to find out which program best fits you and begin your journey as a Spartan Warrior!
コメント