A workout routine is a group of exercises performed in a series of workouts, usually spread over a one week period and repeated for several weeks or months.
Each exercise performed comprises of sets, within each set is the number of reps that are to be performed.
The exercises, sets and reps are structured in a way that meets the goals of the trainee. Secondly, the number of training days and the chosen days on which to train are based on the trainees needs.
An example of the most popular weight training routine is 3,4 or even 5 day split workout known as: split muscle routine. Spit routines are when you perform workout different body parts in each workout. For example if you were working out 3 days per week on the first day you could train back and chest, the second day legs and abdominals, and on the third day shoulders and arms.
Choosing the correct workout routine for your own needs will ensure you progress in your weight lifting efforts as efficiently as possible. How often you workout, what body parts you workout, which exercises to perform, how many sets, how many repetitions per set, how much rest between workouts, which days you workout, your diet & nutrition. All these factors are very important for your training, and finding the right balance is crucial for long term success.
Before you dive straight into a list of workout routines you must ask yourself these questions, answering them truthfully will help you decide which routine suits your current needs & goals.
Question 1: What are you working out for?
Are you trying to increase overall muscle mass, better yourself for a certain sport, competing for an event, looking to tone up for a holiday, family gathering or event? Whatever it is you must understand why you want to lift weights several times per week. This will also help you understand which exercises, set and rep ranges to aim for when creating your routine.
Question 2: How much time can you dedicate to weight lifting?
How many days per week can you truly dedicate to weight lifting and how long can you spend per workout. If you are serious about gaining muscular size and strength you should aim for a minimum of 3 times per week. You also have to remember that when training with weight you need to allow 48 hours for the body to recover from the previous workout, so don’t think you can cram your workout into Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday and have the rest of the week off!
Question 3: Will you commit to a diet that enables you to increase muscle mass/strength as efficiently as possible?
A good diet is essential to your success, without a good diet you cannot build muscle efficiently. Personally I believe diet is at least 50% of your entire muscle building efforts, without a good bodybuilding diet you will make very very slow progressions with strength and size gains.
So, is your diet good enough to enable you the best muscular strength and size gains, and if it’s not are you willing to change it? Do you eat healthy non processed foods on a daily basis, are you getting a good balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins and also drinking plenty of water. Are you consuming the correct amount of calories throughout the day?
Question 4: Will you stay motivated and dedicated to weight lifting
Some of you reading this will be looking to increase muscle mass or endurance to help improve in a certain sport, some might be looking to build muscle or tone up in time for a holiday or special event. If that’s you I would not expect you to stay dedicated to weight lifting all year round.
However, I hope the vast majority reading this will have a decent interest in weight lifting or bodybuilding, so you must ask yourself: Do you have what it takes to workout 3, 4 or even 5 times a week year in year out? If you want to build a strong muscular body you can be proud it takes years of hard work and discipline.
Common Terminology Explained
Hopefully you answered the above questions honestly, I will explain some common weight lifting/bodybuilding terminology that will be included in my free workout routines.
Workout – The workout means the time you spend performing all the different exercises within your desired time. For example if someone is performing a back workout it means they will be working out their back muscles by performing various exercises.
Warm-ups – This involves warming up the muscles and joints so they are “muscularly” ready for the exercise, you do this be actually performing the exercise but with a lighter weight. Warming up is essential every time you workout, skipping your warm-ups could cause an injury. I include warm-up sets with all my example workout routines. For more information see my section on warm up with weights
Sets – A set is a group of completed repetitions for a given exercise, for example if you were performing 3 sets of 12 (3×12) repetitions of “standing barbell curls” when you have completed the 12 repetitions you have completed the first set.
Repetitions – A complete movement through an exercise, for example with “standing barbell curls” you lift the weight up and back down to complete a full repetition. The lifting part of this exercise is the concentric phase and the lowering part is called the eccentric phase.
One Rep Max (1RM) – Your one rep max or 1RM is the weight you can handle only 1 repetition with good form for a given exercise. You can use on line calculators such as this one: http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html to estimate your one rep max for a given exercise, you simply enter the weight lifted and the number of reps performed and it calculates your estimated 1RM.
Stretches – Stretches are very important and must only be performed at the end of your workout. Stretching involves holding the muscle under a stretched tension, anywhere from 10 – 30 seconds. Stretching keeps the muscle flexible and will force blood & lactic acid in and out of the muscle, which will firstly help in the recovery of the muscle and also reduce the soreness that is often felt the day (or few days) after a workout. I also recommend swimming or light cardio work afterwards to keep the muscles flexible.
Training For Your Goals
Depending on your weight training goals will depend on how many repetitions you perform for each exercise.
Size & Strength – Training for size and strength is by far the most popular training method from beginner to advanced trainers. Training for size and strength requires a medium to high number of repetitions (7-10) with medium to heavy loading 75-80% of your one rep maximum, so assuming you can bench 100lbs for 1RM you would use 75-80lbs for 7-10 reps using this method.
Power – For power you should train to a medium number of repetitions (6-10). The weight should be around 70-80% of your 1RM. Training for power is great for improving power based events such as throwing, sprinting or jumping type events. The exercises you choose for power training is also important.
Endurance – Training for muscular endurance means being able to perform repeat muscular contractions under conditions of fatigue. To train for endurance you must aim for 15+ repetitions of a given weight, typically 30-50% of your 1RM.
Maximum Strength – To train for maximum strength you should aim for low repetitions (3 or less) at 85-100% of your 1RM. Power lifters and strongmen who compete will train for maximum strength. Maximum strength is also good for sports that require a huge burst of energy such as Olympic lifting, shot-put, football etc.
How to Progress Efficiently With Your Routine
Important Measurements
It’s all well and good training 3, 4 or 5 days per week but if you do not make notes of your progress how do you know if you are truly progressing?
You must first make sure that when starting any new weight lifting routine you take important measurements and take several photographs so you can truly measure your progress. Here is what I measure every 6 weeks:
- 4 photos of myself (one from the front, one from the back and one from each side)
- The date I started the weight lifting routine
- My weight in pounds and kilograms
- Measure my neck in inches
- Measure my right and left biceps in inches
- Measure my stomach in inches
- Measure my chest in inches
- Measure my legs (quadriceps) in inches
I write the above measurements on the front of my weight lifting routine and then print it out, when I finish that program I store it in a folder and print a new one with new measurements and photos, this allows me to see my progression with every workout routine and make any necessary modifications.
Progressive Resistance
Okay, now that you have a record of your important measurements I can explain how you progress muscularly. There are three ways to increase strength and size with any of my weight lifting routines, and they are:
- Increase the weight you lifted from the previous time
- Increase the number of repetitions from the previous time
- Increase the number of sets from the previous time
If any one of the above has been achieved you have progressed muscularly. All of my routines (shown at the bottom of this page) are setup in such a way that you must record the weight you lifted and also the number of repetitions you managed for each set, this way can you see progressions or plateaus week after week.
So for example, let’s say you are performing barbell bench press, as bench press is a compound movement all my routines include bench press and other compound movements. In my routines if you manage to perform the minimum number of repetitions on all the sets you can increase the weight on the next workout. Just so you understand I will give 2 examples, the first example you WOULD progress the weight on the next workout, the second you would NOT progress:
Example 1 where you WOULD increase the weight on the next workout:
Bench Press Weight Attempted: 200lbs, First Set: 8 repetitions, Second Set: 7 repetitions, Third Set: 6 repetitions, Fourth Set: 6 repetitions
Because at least 6 repetitions were completed on all 4 sets the next time you perform bench press in your workout routine you would increase the weight by a small increment of perhaps 5lbs, which means you would be benching 205lbs on the next workout.
Example 2 where you would NOT increase the weight next time:
Bench Press Weight Attempted: 205lbs, First Set: 7 repetitions, Second Set: 7 repetitions, Third Set: 6 repetitions, Fourth Set: 5 repetitions.
In example 2 the first, second and third sets were good because you managed to hit the minimum of 6 repetitions for bench press, however on the fourth set you only managed 5 repetitions, so next time round you would use the same weight of 205lbs and try to get at least 6 repetitions on the fourth set, should you succeed next time you would increase the weight by 5lbs to 210lbs, should you fail next time you would keep the same weight of 205lbs until you manage to perform at least 6 repetitions on all 4 reps.
You must do this with every exercise in the workout routine, if you want to increase muscle mass and strength, it’s the only way to really know if you are progressing, because visually seeing muscle gain takes months or years and is harder to measure on a weekly basis. Okay with all the above information you should be ready to download your desired workout routine (downloadable in Microsoft Excel).
Workout Routines – Free to Download
Full Body Routine Example
- Workout 1 – Full Body Workout Routine - Download here…
Upper/Lower Split Routine Example
- Workout 1 – Upper Body 1 - Download here…
- Workout 2 - Lower Body 1 - Download here…
- Workout 3 - Upper Body 2 - Download here…
- Workout 4 - Lower Body 2 - Download here…
3 Day Split Routine Example Download here…
- Workout 1 – Back and Chest
- Workout 2 - Triceps and Biceps
- Workout 3 – Legs and Shoulders
Thank you for taking the time to publish these workouts. In the 3 Day Split Routine Example you have a red astrik on some of the excercises. What does that mean? It looks like you can use the dumdbell or barbell version of the exercise but I want to be sure. Thank you, Jason
Hi Jason the red asterix is to show compound exercises, basically big movements like squat, deadlift, bench press etc. Yes you could substiture dumbbell for barbell and vise versa
Hey man this info is very informative, thanks fpor sharing and not being selfish. Will definitely use your advise and points. May I print out the pics of exercises? Much Appreciated!!!!!
Dude, thank you so much for the progress trackers, seriously, this is exactly what I wanted! The sites great as well btw, but again, thank you!
Hello, thanks I appreciate this. But a busy mother like me, can only exercise mon, tues, thurs and fri. Should I exercise all of the days?? Thanks
Hi Helen
If you can workout 3 times per week that is usually enough for most people, if you can do more go for it
Thanks John
Hi John,
Can you help me?
For the percentages, does that mean I should be doing each set by the percentage?
Hi Kyle
The percentages are for your warmup, lets assume your working weight for an exercise is 100lbs, the percentages are your warmup of the working weight, so if you see 50% this would be 50lbs, they only apply to your warmups and the idea is they get your muscles, joints ready to lift your working set, as you increase the percentage through the warm-up you decrease the number of reps, you also take more rest time as the weight gets near your working set.
Hope that helps
Hi there. I found this immensely helpful, you have no idea. I have a question. If I am doing chest and bicep on Monday (for example), do I have to complete all the 10 workouts listed for the chest and tricep workouts you have up in that one session? Thanks.
Hi Jack
yes you can do all 10 workouts, however I strongly suggest that you only perform one working set per exercise, if you plan to do 2-3 sets then perform no more than 3 exercises per body part.
Hope this helps
can i use the 5×5 method with the split routine . would i get more benit out of that then the 8 to 10 reps you explained??
im trying to gain strenth and mass quickly .
Hi Kenny
if your primary goal is size the 8-10 reps is what I would go for, if you wanted to do the 5×5 training method I suggest a full body workout, not a split routine. The real key to putting on size & strength is performing compound exercises: squat, deadlift, back rows, bench press, push presses, pullups etc. 2-3 times per week. If strength is your primary goal then a lower rep range of 3-5 will make you stronger.
What I do is a full body workout called the Texas training method.
This allows me to train 8-10 reps on the Monday, 10-12 reps on the Wednesday & 1-5 reps on the Friday, which helps me increase size & strength and stops me from burning out. I always do the same compound exercises on each workout and the objective is to beat the Monday & Friday records each week, making me stronger and bigger. I’m seeing great results with this method
Hope this helps
Thank you! John,you are really helping me. I like that.
Day 1: decline pushup, wide decline pushup, neutral grip shoulder press, lateral raise, tricep extension
Day 2: jump rope
Day 3: dumbbell shrug, decline ab plank
Day 4: jump rope
Day 5: neutral grip pullup, wide neutral grip pullup, rear deltoid row, bicep curl, hammer curl, reverse bicep curls, reverse wrist curl, wrist curl
Day 6: hyperextension, leg curl (plantar flexion), standing calf raise, wide squat, leg extension
I prefer doing 5 sets of 4 to 12 reps each exercise (not including the warm up set). Am I overtraining? :/ Or is this ok?
Could you please explain what values go into the 3-day-split routine. Following each set am I entering weight ? Could you also explain what the totals add up to. Thank you
Hi John
Sure, in the 3 day split you enter the weight you lifted in that week for a given exercise. For example on back day week one you start deadlift with 200lbs, the second week you manage you 10 reps across all 3 sets, so you increase the weight to 205lbs in week 2. The idea is you enter the weight you lifted for the given exercise each week, the totals are calculated automatically in the excel sheet so that you can see the poundage increase week after week. The graphs will also update, allowing you to see which areas you are improving and which areas are not.