I thought I’d write a post on how to create a training plan and in the next few posts that follow I will show you the training plan I am currently using which might help give you some ideas.
If you are new to exercise please make sure you ease in to the exercise to begin with and if you have any health problems that may affect your training please consult a professional, we don’t want any of you flaking out on us!
I think putting together a training plan makes it easier to stick to the exercise you have planned – OK you still have to actually DO the exercise but at least you know what you need to do so you can just get out there and do it rather than sit there thinking, well I don’t know what to do so I just won’t bother – maybe tomorrow etc. It just helps to minimize the excuses you tell yourself.
Firstly – you need to decide if you are going to use a gym or if you are going to do a combination of body weight exercises and non-machine cardio, I use the gym four days a week and cardio (indoor netball) one day a week.
Secondly – what are your goals? Are you trying to loose weight, gain muscle etc. Personally I’ve been through the loosing weight deal (boom goodbye 13kg!) and am now focusing on building muscle.
Thirdly – What time can you realistically commit to (now is not the time to pull out the excuses, you do not need to watch 3 hours of T.V every night, make some time for your training plan but make it realistic). I do 5 days a week, sometimes 6 if my body is feeling up to it and we have nothing planned. I would suggest starting off with 3 days a week if you have a busy schedule then increase the number of days – please DO have at least one rest day each week though!
Fourthly – Are there any sports you play or exercises you really like to do? I love to play netball and play in our work indoor netball team pretty much every week (unless I’m late back from a job at work), if so pencil this in on your calendar every week. If your not already in a team but really enjoy playing a certain sport, or you love running for example then find a team to join or pencil in at least one of your training days as a day designated to running (or whatever it is that you love).
Now we’ve got some of the most important decisions out of the way we can start putting together the plan. I use my calendar for this, for example the week just been looked a little like this;
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| Upper Body | Lower Body | Indoor Netball | Rest | Upper Body | Legs – Squats etc | Rest |
I do all my exercise after work as I am NOT a morning person at all, I tried exercising in the morning and it just didn’t work for me at all. However if it does work for you then I do recommend it as it means it’s out of the way first thing and when your tired after work you don’t need to worry about the fact you haven’t got your workout in yet.
Once you’ve worked out what days are rest days and which are designated for a sport (or run, walk etc, if this fits with your goals) you can then split up the days you have left. For me I have four days left as I’m trialing two rest days per week at the moment (and my body is thanking me for it!) and I like splitting upper and lower body into different days so it makes sense for me to have two of each.
What I then do is head on over to Bodybuilding.com (don’t worry your not going to hulk out! they have an incredible number of exercises over there and many can be bodyweight exercises so you don’t need to set foot in a gym if that’s not your thing (but seriously I never thought it was my thing until I gave it a chance)).
What I then did was choose a couple exercises for each muscle (choose ones that you know how to do or look relatively easy to perform to begin with – and start with NO WEIGHT and make sure it feels fine before you starting adding weight, and please do that gradually! If you can hire a Personal Trainer to show you how to perform the moves properly then please do so) and jot them down.
I generally have around 6-8 different exercises on any given day and a couple different abdominal exercises as well (which if I’m honest often get skipped, so I will be incorporating these in to their own workout when I next change my training plan). Once again go by how you feel, if you new choose say 4 different exercises for the upper and four for the lower body and start from there.
Next you need to decide on the number of repetitions (reps) for each exercise, generally I go with between 12-20 depending on the exercise. Try it out and see how you feel, just remember to push yourself but not enough that you will flake out!
Now decide how many sets you will do for each exercise. I generally start off with 3 sets and once I’ve been doing my plan for about a month move up to 4 sets. I didn’t understand sets and reps when I first began at the gym so I’ll give you a quick outline here for the newbies 🙂
| Exercise | Walking Lunges |
| Reps | 20 |
| Set | 3 |
| Weight | 3kg |
The above simply means to do 20 walking lunges (reps) three times (sets) holding a 3kg dumbbell on each side while performing the exercise. The image below shows a walking lunge (albeit very quickly!)
Keep an eye out for my training plan which I will outline over the next couple of weeks which may help if your still not sure where to start.
Make sure you have fun with your training plan! You are less likely to stick to it long term if it’s not fun! I also recommend mixing up the training plan every couple of months (or sooner if you get bored really easily, but do give the plan time to work!) to keep your body guessing.
Do you have a training plan currently or are you more haphazard with your exercise?