How to Create a Gym Workout Plan

Structure your workout to maximise muscle growth and increase strength.

Many people that regularly attend the gym typically fall into one of two categories.

One: don’t really have a routine — we do a little bit of whatever every day.

Two: you do a generic workout plan that you found online, a fitness influencer recommended, or you paid someone for a “custom” plan that probably isn’t very customised at all.

If you want to reach the next level with your training and body composition, you need to educate yourself on the variables that influence a workout.

You should be able to create your own plan that’s effective and that you enjoy so you stick to it long-term.

Luckily for you, I have created this guide to cover all the key aspects contributing to programming a workout routine that will empower you to reach your fitness goals.

Exercise routine/split

The perfect training routine for you will depend on how much time you can dedicate to the gym each week. This is the amount of time you have for a workout and the number of days/sessions you have per week.

An exercise/training/workout split structures our gym week to target different muscle groups on specified days.

How long you work out will dictate how many hard sets you can do during a workout. Hard sets are those trained at a high-intensity level so warm-up sets don’t count.

Four common training splits

Here a four common training splits that will help you to build muscle and get stronger:

Push-pull-legs (PPL) — The Push-Pull-Legs split is a popular exercise routine, ideal for both intermediate (2–5 years experience) and advanced lifters (5 years plus).

During a PPL split, all related muscle groups are trained together in the same workout. A “push” workout trains the upper body pushing muscles — chest, shoulders and triceps. A “pull” workout trains the upper body pulling muscles — back, biceps, traps, and rear delts. In a “legs” workout, train your entire lower body — quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves and abdominals.

A PPL split might look like this:

• Monday — Push
• Tuesday — Pull
• Wednesday — Legs
• Thursday — Push
• Friday — Pull
• Saturday — Legs

Upper/lower body split — The upper and lower body could be perfect for you if you have precisely four days in the gym each week. Workouts are split up between upper body and lower body exercises. For example:

• Monday — Upper body
• Tuesday — Lower body
• Wednesday — rest
• Thursday — Upper body
• Friday — Lower body

Bro-split — The bro-split is probably the most common exercise routine for any gym newbie trying to build muscle. It is also commonly used by bodybuilders, even though science suggests it’s probably not optimal for building muscle (they’ll build muscle with steroids regardless!).

The bro-split is a training split when a person focuses on one or two key muscle groups during a workout. For example:

• Monday — Chest
• Tuesday — Back
• Wednesday — legs
• Thursday — Arms
• Friday — Shoulders & Abs

Full body split — full-body training split is a workout where you train all or most of your muscle groups. A full body split could be over 2, 3, 4, or even 5-days a week.

• Monday: Full Body 1
• Tuesday: off
• Wednesday: Full Body 2
• Thursday: off
• Friday: Full Body 3
• Saturday: off
• Sunday: off

2015 research from Schoenfeld and colleagues suggests that an advanced lifter could build more muscle with higher training frequencies. Therefore, a 4 or 5-day full-body split could be optimal to stimulate hypertrophy (muscle-building) for those with more than five years' experience in the gym.

“Muscle hypertrophy occurs when muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown and results in positive net protein balance in cumulative periods. This could be achieved with both RT and protein ingestion, which stimulates muscle protein synthesis and leads to decreases in muscle protein breakdown.” — Krzysztofik et al., 2019

For an in-depth summary of these training splits, check out the article below.

Exercise choice

For a basic guide on what exercises will be most beneficial to your goals of building muscle, check out the list below.

Focus your energy on these exercises, and the compound lifts in particular, to give yourself the best possible chance to build muscle and increase strength.

In its simplest form, how we build muscle is the same as getting stronger — we use resistance training. However, the way we structure our workouts to optimise to different goals is slightly different.

Compound lifts

High reps are fatiguing with compound lifts, so we should stick to lower rep ranges, have longer rest periods and we don’t train to failure. Reps will be fast and explosive, focusing on efficiency and optimal form.

• Deadlifts (3–6 reps)
• Squat (3–6 reps)
• Leg Press (6–12 reps)
• Lunges (8–15 reps)
• Bench Press (3–8 reps)
• Overhead Press (3–8 reps)
• Dips (8–15 reps)
• Pull-Ups (6–12 reps)
• Barbell Rows (6–10 reps)

To build strength, free weights will be most beneficial.

If you don’t have access to a gym, you can use most of the above exercises with free weights (dumbbells & barbells). But to load the lifts to gain real results, you do require proper equipment like a squat rack and bench.

Isolation exercises

Once we’re fatiguing from the heavy compound lifts such as squatting, machines have their place to help us really isolate the muscle groups we’re targeting. These exercises take less energy overall; so even though we’re fatigued, these machines allow us to train at a high enough intensity level to damage the muscle, forcing it to adapt by growing back bigger/stronger (in basic terms).

Isolation exercises are trained closer to failure, using techniques such as forced reps or drop sets, repetitions are slower and more controlled, focusing on time under tension and mind-muscle connection.

• Bicep Curls (8–15 reps)
• Lateral Raises (10–15 reps)
• Face Pulls (10–15 reps)
• Hanging Leg Raises (6–15 reps)
• Calf Raises (12–20 reps)
• Hamstring Curls (12–20 reps)
• Leg Extensions (12–20 reps)
• Lat Pulldown (10–15 reps)
• Barbell Shrug (8–12 reps)

For a rundown on exercises to avoid, check out the article below.

Workout length

The total number of sets you do during a workout often depends on how long you have to spend training. Many people have busy lives and the gym isn’t something that they can prioritise over everything else.

Aim for around 10–20 reps total during each workout.

An advanced lifter will need on the higher side and for them, more than 20 total sets could be optimal for building muscle, but we just don’t know for sure. But, there’s not enough science to know for sure and accumulating fatigue and overtraining is a big risk associated with high volumes.

Each individual should monitor how their body feels and respond to different levels of intensity and volume. If you’re sore and can’t train at 100% — strength is down and form is compromised, then you’re probably doing too much. Reduce your total weekly or daily volume.

For example, a newbie will build more muscle than an advanced trainee, and an advanced trainee requires more volume to make progress.

The more advanced you become in the gym; the more volume is required to keep progressing forward. However, a newbie lifter won’t be able to manage the same amount of training volume without fatiguing.

A newbie lifter will get great results from a three-day full-body split. An advanced lifter, not so much.

To learn more about how long we need to spend in the gym to build muscle, check out the article below.

Number of Repetitions

How many repetitions (reps) we do for each exercise depends on the exercise itself, how we structure our workout and our goals.

In simple terms, the practical rep range is around 6–15 reps. If you stay in this zone, you can’t go wrong.

Why? There are two important factors here when it comes to rep ranges.

First, we want to do enough reps to maximise muscle growth. Secondly, we want to reduce our injury risk and fatigue.

We need recovery to be optimised in order for our body to adapt and build more muscle.

The accumulation of volume in heavy rep ranges (1–5) is difficult as far more sets are required to have the same hypertrophic effects. For example, a 2014 study from Schoenfeld and colleagues found that 3 sets of 10 reps will build a similar amount of muscle as 7 sets of 3 reps.

As we’re going to reduce our injury risk, but build the same amount of muscle, it makes sense to have the majority of our exercises in higher rep ranges as it requires fewer sets and accumulation of fatigue to be effective.

This is because strength training requires much heavier loads much closer to our 1RM (one rep maximum), which becomes taxing on our joints.

Higher rep ranges tend to improve endurance and build a higher work capacity more resistant to higher volumes.

“A common area of concern with powerlifting-type training is an increased potential for injury (11). The performance of high training volumes using very heavy loads places substantial stress on the joints and soft tissue structures. This may make an individual more susceptible to muscle and connective strains, as well as increasing the potential for long-term degenerative changes at the working joints.” — Schoenfeld et al., 2014

Training with fewer than 6 reps does have its place for strength training. But it is fatiguing and requires long rest periods between sets.

Moreover, because low rep workouts require more total sets and rest periods, they end up taking far longer. Therefore, less than a quarter of our total workout volume should be within this rep range.

Start your workout with your strength-focused exercises in the lower-rep ranges.

Training with heavy loads is better for building strength, which leads to muscle growth in the long term as we can lift more weight in the hypertrophic rep ranges, meaning more tension on the muscle and hypertrophy overall.

So, it’s okay to use a spectrum of volumes, but most of our exercises should sit in the 6–15 practical rep range.

“Both bodybuilding- and powerlifting-type training promote similar increases in muscular size, but powerlifting-type training is superior for enhancing maximal strength.” — Schoenfeld et al., 2014

For more about rep ranges and how these differ, check out the article below.

Weight

How much weight should you lift for each exercise?

As much as possible, right?

Yes, and no… It’s not that simple.

Strength training is different to training for hypertrophy. And again, training for speed and power is slightly different.

According to “The New Science of Size and Strength”, a good general guide for the percentage of our one-rep maximum (1RM) that we train at for different goals is:

• Muscle size: 70–80%
• Strength: 60–90%
• Speed and power: 50–60%

RPE (rate of perceived exertion) is used to measure the intensity level of a set.

Running from 0–10, the numbers rate how “hard” a set was. A zero would be lying on the couch and lifting a beer, and 10 is an all-out effort leaving you laying on the ground half-dead.

So, from the above example of training for muscle size, 70–80% intensity would be an RPE of 7–8.

Reps in reserve (RIR) is used along with RPE to estimate how many reps you could still achieve before you reach failure. An RPE of 8 would leave you with 2 sets left in reserve.

Training to failure is very fatiguing and therefore should be left until the last exercise, or we risk compromising recovery.

We should be around three reps shy of failure on most compound movements like squats or bench presses and zero to two reps shy of failure on most isolation exercises such as a bicep curl or leg extension.

To learn more about training for strength versus training for muscle growth, check out the article below.

Rest periods

Across much of the exercise literature, it’s agreed that the most effective rest period for building strength is 3–5 minutes and 1–2 minutes for building muscle.

Key variable: how long do you want to spend in the gym?

Many of us live busy lives, so time management is key when it comes to exercising. For others, we love every minute we spend in the gym and can’t get enough.

For those of us that need to manage our time efficiently in the gym — if we spend 5 minutes between every set, we’ll be in the gym all day.

3 to 5 minutes of rest between sets is optimal to build strength. However, 5-minute rest periods aren’t practical for somebody with a limited time frame for their workout.

Therefore, minimising time in the gym vs maximising results could become a trade-off.

Is it worth doubling the time of your workout to achieve only slightly better results? For many, probably not.

If you don’t have much time for your workout, you shouldn’t be overly concerned, as research indicates that you can still build muscle on short rest periods, as long as they’re at least a minute long.

However, longer rest periods are far better for strength training.

“Hypertrophy-style protocols typically involve greater volume (3–6 sets; 8–12 repetitions), moderate intensities (<85% 1 repetition maximum [1RM]), and short rest intervals (30–90 seconds), whereas strength-style protocols typically involve higher intensities (≥85% 1RM), low volumes (2–6 sets; ≤6 repetitions), and longer rest intervals (3–5 minutes).” — Gonzalez, 2016

For an in-depth run-down on rest periods, read the article below.

In Conclusion

In this article, we have explored how to structure a workout to optimise it for building muscle.

Several work variables dictate our workout structure, such as the exercise routine/training split, exercise choice, workout length, number of repetitions, weight, and rest periods.

I have given some recommendations on these factors based on what the current scientific literature suggests is best practice.

Thank you for reading.

I hope you found the content useful!

If you enjoyed the read, you might be interested in this article debunking five common fitness myths.

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