Workouts are a great tool in terms of weight loss, muscle gain and generally living a healthier lifestyle. That being said, there is a difference between strolling into a gym and randomly jumping on any piece of equipment that takes your fancy, leisurely throwing out a few reps then leaving, and structuring a training session to ensure that you get the most out of each and every minute that you spend in the gym. This article is just going to run through the basics in how to structure a workout that could go a long way in helping you to achieve more from your sessions. It boils down to this:
Warm up
Warm ups can vary based on what your activity is going to be but for the purposes of this post, we'll focus on gym based workouts. For me the key inclusions are:
- Mobility work (focus on any problem areas as well as the muscles you're most likely to target)
- Activation work (focus on muscle groups you're likely to target)
- CNS work - get your heart rate up and get your CNS firing with some more dynamic movements (eg hand release push ups/clap push ups, depth jumps, squat jumps etc)
Warming up is an incredibly important factor in a training session. It gets blood flowing through your muscles, mobilises your joints and muscles and prepares your body for the exercises in the session ahead. There are various sources out there that can provide you with great warmup routines and videos explaining various stretches etc. To make it super easy for you, I recommend Pliability. It's a subscription based app that guides you through various stretching routines.
Main event
I'm going to keep this simple and divide your workout into the following:
- Warm up sets
- Working sets
Even though you've already warmed up, it's always good to get some warm up sets in before you hit your working sets. Before each exercise, think about the weight that you want to lift for each exercise. Perform your warm up sets as percentages of that weight. For example -
- 10 reps at 40% of target weight
- 8 reps at 60% of target weight
- 6 reps at 70% of target weight
- 4 reps at 80% of target weight
- 2 reps at 90% of target weight
It might seem like overkill, but these reps will ensure that your muscles are sufficiently warmed up, will minimise the risk of injury and will contribute to the overall volume of your workout. Bottom line - they're important.
Then there's your working sets, these need little to no explanation. Just perform each exercise for the set amount of weight, reps and sets that you've defined before your workout. The only thing that I'd ensure you keep track of is the time that you've taken to rest between sets. Here are some rough guidelines for rest in terms of the type of sets you're doing.
- Strength sets - 90-120 seconds between sets
- Hypertrophy (higher rep) sets - 60-90 seconds between sets
- Power (low weight, low rep) sets - 45-60 seconds between sets
Cool Down/recovery
- Low intensity cardio (eg walking/slow cycling)
- Further mobility work
- Cold plunge/sauna (if you're so inclined)
Cool downs are one of the easiest parts of a workout to skip, but they're so important for recovery. I tend to jump back into Pliability and hit another mobility routine (though I have just purchased a Lumi Recovery Pod so who knows - cold plunges might be the centerpiece of my recovery routine).
