Forget Workout Programs – Train Yourself!

The below post has been brought to you buy Justin Woltering. Justin is a super-star cover model, having graced numerous fitness magazine front covers, and is sponsored by Men’s Health. Today his post looks at coming up with your own training split, and not following cookie-cutter plans. Take it away Justin! 

After “what supplements do you take?,” the number one question guys ask me is “what training program should I use?” What people asking these questions (inexperienced lifters, or noobies) don’t realise or appreciate, is that simply mimicking what I do won’t work for you. Worst yet, just asking what type of protein powder I use, or if i use creatine, is going to lead to this new lifter making rapid gains. The supplements help. Yes. But simply adding a cheap protein powder to your diet or supplement stack won’t set you on a fast track to getting the body of your dreams. CheapProteinDiscountCodes.co.uk offers the best protein discount codes for my protein, monster supplements, maximuscle, the protein works, go nutrition and many other bulk protein powder retailers.

Moving on from supplements, I admire that people ask about training, and a training routine. While it’s certainly great for beginners to focus on smart training, my first response is almost always “why do you NEED a program at all?”

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of programs out there on the internet and in magazines, and sure, you can get great results by choosing one, sticking to it, and giving it all you’ve got for months on end. But why follow someone else’s routine when you can figure out for yourself what split, what exercises and what progression schemes will work for you? Not only is everyone’s body different, everyone has different stressors, different schedules and different recovery abilities.

So, if you want to make the most long-term progress possible, forget “programs” – even the good ones – and learn to train yourself! Here are a few considerations that should go into your personally designed routine.

Your Split

Almost every bodybuilder follows some sort of body part split, and most strength athletes break up their training according to certain key movements. Truth be told, however, neither of these options is necessarily your best bet. If you’re a beginner or even an intermediate lifter, your main concerns are gaining overall size AND strength – not one or the other! Until you’re you get to a very advanced level, strength gains and size gains will go hand in hand, so you need to choose the split that will allow you to progress as quickly as possible on whatever exercises you choose.

How should you apply this to your choice of training split? In my opinion, your time constraints are your main concern. If you’re truly busy – I’m talking full-time work, school, or both along with other significant obligations – you might only have time to train three times per week. If that’s the case, full-body sessions with some sort of press, squat and pull are probably your best bet. If you can train more often, however, you’ll probably want to split things up a bit. I have most four-day lifters alternate upper and lower body days. If you can train five or more days per week, use either a body part split OR the upper-lower split with some extra “bodybuilding” days for assistance work.

Sets, Reps and Exercises

Exercise selection, volume and load – if you ask me, these are the variables that really matter! You can split your training up however you want, really, and as long as you’re progressing on key exercises with plenty volume and heavy enough weights, you’re going to get bigger and stronger.

As for exercises, my recommendations should come as no surprise: stick to the basics! One or two variations each of a squat, press or pull, and do NOT shy away from the hardest ones. That means you’ll need to back squat, front squat or both, and not just do leg presses and one-legged dumbbell squats. Likewise, you’d better be doing at least one type of heavy bench press and overhead press with a barbell, as well as a conventional deadlift, sumo deadlift or both. In general, the exercises that allow you to move the most weight with good form will produce the largest gains in muscle size.

For your rep ranges, remember – you want to be using heavy loads, so your reps are going to be somewhat limited. You shouldn’t be doing a bunch of near-max singles and doubles, but sets of 15 and 20 aren’t going to do much for you, either. Stick to a few key rep ranges: 4-6, 6-10, and 10-12, and make sure you’re always moving up in weight in EACH range.

Finally, the number of sets you can do will be determined by your frequency, your work capacity, and how close you take each set to failure. On frequency, the more often you perform a type of movement or a train a specific muscle, the fewer sets you’ll need to do per session. However, a high work capacity will allow you to perform more sets AND train a muscle more frequently. Yours may not be great to begin with, but you can always improve it by gradually adding sets to each workout. Lastly, the closer you come to failure during your work sets, the fewer sets you’ll be able to perform without a severe drop-off in performance. Super-intense sets are good every once in a while, but you’ll probably make the best gains by leaving a rep or two in the tank and performing more overall work.

Constant Progression

No matter the exercises, split, and set and rep schemes you choose, the one thing that MUST occur for you to improve is PROGRESION! This is obvious to most powerlifters, but for some reason beginner bodybuilders often think they’ll be able to add lots of size without getting much stronger. Nothing could be further from the truth! Strive to constantly add weight to the bar – without sacrificing reps or form – and when that fails, add extra sets to pump up the volume. If you’re not consistently making tangible progress that you can record in your training log, something is off with your training program, your diet, or your rest and recovery.

For a No Nonsense Foundation to Bodybuilding and Powerlifting check out www.biggerbetterfasternow.com and www.justinwoltering.com