How to Design a Full-Body Workout Program

 

Designing Your Own Workout Program
Part One:
Full-Body Workouts

     I thought it would be a good idea to do a series on how to design your own workout program.  How much interest there is in this first piece will determine how many entries total that I do in the series.  We will start with full-body workouts, since that is where everyone needs to begin their training journey.  If you’ve been following any “pre-designed” workouts—even if it’s one of my own here on the blog—you should also start your own programming design with full-body workouts.  And they are, of course, a great way to get “back-to-the-basics” of training no matter how long you’ve been working out, so this essay is also a good read for any of you “bro split” folks out there who have been doing one-bodypart-a-day workouts (or something similar) for no telling how long.

     Following a workout program is essential to attaining the goals and results you want from your training.  Too many lifters—at least in the west—don’t even follow a workout program, but, instead, seem to do random whatever when they go to the gym.  Only slightly better—but still not good—many trainees follow “workout-of-the-day" sessions, and much of these are done in group classes.  While “group” training might be fun for you, or it might keep you more motivated while working out, that kind of training still isn’t very good because it’s not specific for (this should be obvious, but here it goes) you.  A good personal trainer can fix this, but there simply aren’t enough good personal trainers out there in the American gym space—and I have a feeling this is the same for other parts of the world, so this applies to most of my international readers, as well.  This is why it’s important that you take on the knowledge yourself of how to design a proper training program.

     Before designing a program—any program; not just a full-body one—you need to know your goal.  Once you understand your goal(s), then you can design a program with that goal in mind.  The problem that I often see, and one of the problems that I often write about (I sometimes feel as if I repeat the same things ad nauseam on this blog, but I remind myself to keep doing it since I have more-and-more first-time readers), is that a lifter will say that his goal is one thing, but then end up doing a workout in the gym that doesn’t help him achieve that goal.  Here’s how I put it in the introduction to my Ultimate Mass & Power book: “There seems to be quite a bit of confusion out there—whether it’s on the internet or at the gym—about how to train for BOTH hypertrophy and serious strength gains. The first problem seems to be that some folks just don’t know how to do either. Guys go to the gym to “get big” but then spend most of their time attempting to max out on a lift. Or, conversely, a guy wants to be massively strong but spends too much of his time training for a pump or doing a lot of repetitions.”  Now, it could be that a combination of mass and strength is not your goal, but the sentiment still applies.  You need to ensure that your training is in line with your goals.

     So, what are your goals? Are you after aesthetics only?  If so, do you need to gain muscle, lose bodyfat, or shoot for a combination of both.  Are you after strength only?  Trying to only achieve strength gains without concomitant size gains is not the typical goal, but it certainly is for many powerlifters or Olympic lifters.  It might also be the goal of many athletes.  So are you after one of the above goals and you train in a certain sport?  Are you an athlete who simply wants to improve your speed and strength for your sport?  Or are you one of the aforementioned guys or gals who is after a combination of both size and strength?  Know your goal, be very specific about your goal, and then have a very specific plan to help you achieve that goal.

     Once you are specific about your goal(s), it is then that you can begin to design your program.  The first thing you need to decide (before you begin to focus on what the actual program will look like in the gym): how many days can you work out and on what days will you train?  For full-body sessions, 3-days-per-week is the best (at least for the majority of lifters), but you can certainly get good results using a 2-days-per-week program.  (There may even come a time when you can move to a 4-days-per-week program if you become quite advanced, and there are also good full-body “easy strength” programs that allow you to train your entire body 5 or even up to 7 days weekly, but we will save those discussions for a future essay—probably Part Two of this series—on designing an easy strength whole-body regimen.)

     Even if you opt for a 3 day program, you may want to start by training every 3rd day until your body adjusts.  This means you would train on a 1-on, 2-off program for a few weeks.  Once you’ve adapted to it, you can then go to a traditional 3-days-per-week regimen.  The only problem with this approach is that you end up training on different days each week, which might be a problem if you only have certain days that you can make it to the gym.  Nonetheless, this might be a good option for you to try.  And even if you would do well on a 3-days-weekly program, don’t select that option if you know you can only make it to the gym twice weekly.  Settle on the option that you know you can stick with.  Whichever one you do choose, pick training days each week that you also know you won’t be likely to miss.  Most lifters, for example, find that Monday, Wednesday, Friday work well for them as their training days, or Monday and Thursday if they’re only going to train 2 days a week.  These are lifters who, typically, work “regular” 9-to-5 type jobs and want to have their weekends off for relaxing or possibly for religious reasons.  This is also what a lot of lifters with young families like.  But that may not be the best schedule for you.  You may have more time to train on the weekends, so you need to slot at least one of your days in there.  When I was younger, worked full-time in a factory, had young kids, and was training with the goal of becoming an elite powerlifter, I always liked to train on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.  This allowed me to devote Friday nights and Saturdays to my then-wife and sons.  Then I wouldn’t train until Sunday afternoon/evening, where I would do my hardest, heaviest full-body workout of the week.  I liked this approach.  There was just something about training really hard on Sunday evenings that always better prepared me to start the work week the next morning.  Whatever work threw at me come Monday, it was nothing compared to the hellish training I endured the night before—although it must be said that I thoroughly enjoyed that hard-as-heck training, so there’s that.  Anyway, my point is that that particular schedule worked well for me, not just because it fit into my lifestyle, but because I enjoyed it too.  So make sure you find a schedule that fits your lifestyle and one that you enjoy.  If you do, then you will all the quicker be on the right track to making good gains.

     If you train 2-days-per-week, then train on a heavy/light or a heavy/medium program.  If you train 3-days-weekly, then select a heavy/light/medium program.  Now, if you’re after hypertrophy—or primarily after hypertrophy—it may serve you better to think of your days more as hard/easy/moderate.

     A secondary approach is to make all of your sessions “moderate.”  I believe that this was (for the most part, there were exceptions) the “secret” to most old-school full-body regimens.  They left plenty of extra strength “in-the-tank” at the end of their workouts.  It’s also the reason why they were able to train (seemingly) with such fairly high-volume utilizing full-body workouts 3x weekly.  As they progressed in both muscle size and strength, they eventually started either training harder or adding in more work.  But they took their sweet time over the weeks, months, and even years to be able to do that sort of thing.  And this also might be a good idea for you.  Some folks start out attempting 3-days-per-week, full-body sessions, but stop after only a couple of weeks—hell, maybe after only a couple of workouts—because they are just too sore after the first sessions, and they don’t believe there’s any way they will be able to recover from workout-to-workout in order to make these programs efficacious.  If this sounds like you, then at the very least start off your full-body workout journey by always leaving a few reps in the tank on each-and-every set, and always leave the gym feeling refreshed.  If you don’t feel better when you leave the gym than when you entered, something’s amiss, and you simply trained too hard or with too much volume.  In fact, the secret might just be to feel significantly better when you finish your workouts than at the beginning of them.

     Now let’s discuss the specifics of exercises, sets, and reps.  Exercises first.

     It doesn’t really matter what set/rep combinations you select if you don’t select the correct exercises to begin with.  Make sure that you are using primarily big, so-called “bang-for-your-buck” movements.  Here’s a brief rundown of my suggestions: front squats, back squats, overhead squats, bottom-position squats, kettlebell or dumbbell versions of those movements; bench presses with barbells or dumbbells, overhead presses with barbell or dumbbells (one-arm overheads are a great dumbbell option), bottom-position bench presses, weighted dips, behind-the-neck presses; all manner of quick lifts such as power cleans, power snatches, hang cleans, hang snatches, dumbbell cleans and snatches, one-arm dumbbell cleans and snatches, and whatever kettlebell versions you’d like to use; deadlifts both conventional and sumo, deficit deadlifts both conventional and sumo, one-arm dumbbell deadlifts (if you have access to have enough dumbbells), and thick-bar versions of all those; chins, barbell curls, pullovers, and weighted sit-ups (or another “heavy” ab movement) can round out the list.  Add some others if you wish, but make sure to stick with free weight exercises as opposed to machines.

     It would also be a good idea to add some loaded carries or other “odd” lifts to your program.  Finish off each session with a set or two of farmer walks, sandbag carries, keg tosses, sled drags, stone carries, or wheelbarrow walks and you will be on the right track.

     Make sure your exercise selections create a balanced workout program.  If you do a horizontal pressing exercise, a vertical pressing movement, a lower body pull exercise, an upper body pull movement, a curling movement, and a loaded carry, you won’t need, really, anything else and you will have a balanced program.  If each one of your workouts includes lots of chins, benches, dips, and curls but very little cleans, deadlifts, or squats then you have most definitely programmed wrong.

     It may simplify it if you just remember at each workout to include (what I call) the big 4.  Squat something heavy.  Pick something heavy off the ground.  Press something heavy overhead.  And, finally, drag or carry an odd object for time or distance.  That’s the big 4.  If you don’t do them at each workout—you may want to substitute overheads for benches or dips and heavy pulls off the ground with chins at some sessions—make sure you do each of those at least twice each week.

     At first, limit your exercises to 5 or 6 at each session.  Barbell squats, conventional deadlifts, military presses, barbell curls, weighted sit-ups, and farmer walks would be a good workout.  As would front squats, power cleans, barbell bench presses, one-arm db overhead presses, weighted chins, and sandbag carries.  You may even want to start with just 3 or 4 exercises until you adapt.  If you train 2x weekly to begin with (or every 3rd day as per my prior suggestion), then one workout could be deadlifts, bench presses, chins, and the ab wheel; and the 2nd session could be bottom-position squats, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, barbell curls, and farmer walks.  The bottom line—whether it’s 3 exercises or 6—is to not choose more than you can handle.  Eventually, as you adapt, you can add an exercise or two here and there.

     Now we can talk sets and reps.

     When it comes to hypertrophy only or muscle-building combined with power and strength, your working sets on each lift should total between 20 and 40 reps on average.  If strength is your only goal, or if you’re after strength/power with a possible size side effect, then roughly 10-20 reps should be about right.

     For hypertrophy, this means set/rep combos such as 2 sets of 15, 3 sets of 10, 4 sets of 8, and 5 sets of 6 would all be good.  3 sets of 10 was for a long time the sort of de facto standard for full-body, 3x per week hypertrophy gains.  It’s not as popular these days, and is often seen as boring and “outdated.”  But boring doesn’t mean that it can't be effective.  It’s just not that effective for strength and power, which might be the reason for its seeming demise.  But for hypertrophy only, it’s still a good call.  You can also do descending reps as you add weight.  3 sets of 10, 8, and 6 is a good example, but anything similar will do.

     For strength and mass-building, this means set/rep combos such as 5 sets of 4, the standard 5 sets of 5 (6 or 7 sets of 5 would be even better as you advance), 8 sets of 4, and 10 sets of 3 reps are all good.  This isn’t the time to go into details here, but if you’ve read any of my other articles, you will know that I’m a fan of high sets combined with low reps.  If you want more advice on how exactly to program 10 sets of 3 reps (or anything similar), then check out some of my other articles/essays here on the blog.

     If it’s only strength that you are pursuing, then these would all work well: 2 to 3 sets of 5, 3 to 5 sets of 3, 4 sets of 4, and 5 to 8 sets of 2 reps.

     If any of that leaves you confused, and you’re not sure which one to start with, then just select 4 to 5 sets of 6-8 reps.  As you adjust to the workout, you can start to assess if you need to train with more sets but less reps or more reps and less sets.

     I hope this essay will help you in designing your own, personalized program.  There is probably some other stuff I could add, but since it’s closing in on 3K words at this point, I figured it’s enough information for the time being.  If you have any questions or run into any issues when designing your program, then please shoot me an email or leave your questions in the comments section below.