Create your own program with me.

To many, my job sounds extremely simple.

Figure out what exercises get people strong, what sets and reps to choose, and then put it together.

Done deal.

Oh… I wish it were that straightforward.

If It was, I would manage hundreds of clients at a time.

Unfortunately, the art and science of strength, hypertrophy, and sports performance (all domains I cover with clients) can contain layers upon layers, depending on how deep you're willing to go.

Like many amazing minds in the field today, I want to have as strong an understanding as possible.

So that I can serve my clients to the highest degree.

Luckily, I have done a lot of the heavy lifting for you (pun intended).

In this article, I will walk you through a simple, step-by-step process for putting together your very own program.

As I mentioned, the art and science of program design can be very complex.

But I've done a lot of the back-end work for you.

I'm reading the books, investigating the research, and watching and learning from those much brighter and further ahead than me.

I hope I can distill all that complexity into something you can take with you today and use to start your training journey.

Few endeavors will teach you the lessons and bring you as much joy as teaching your body to endure and thrive in the routine stress of a brilliantly constructed training program.

We'll take this one step at a time.

You can imagine this as a home we're going to build.

At the very beginning, the finished product will seem completely abstract.

A loosely formed vision in your mind.

But as we add layer upon layer, things will take shape.

By the time we reach our last step, we will have a sturdy, well-designed home in front of us.

You can take pride in knowing you took something from your mind and brought it into the real world.

Creation at its finest.

Now, let's get started.

A quick side note: There are a vast number of layers I could cover as we explore individual differences in training. But, contrary to what many think, individual differences are a much lower-tier consideration. Today, we'll cover how to ensure we have all of the essential components of a program. Then cover some ways to individualize things.

Our first step is to decide what the goal of our training plan will be.

In the same way, an architect needs to know what purpose his design is serving.

Is he building a house? A skyscraper? A library?

This step is vital because it will dictate one of the most essential principles in strength training.

Specificity.

The principle of specificity dictates that the stresses we impose on ourselves through exercise lead to specific adaptations.

If we wish to get stronger, our program needs to be specifically built with that goal in mind.

For our purposes, we will choose strength as our goal.

Okay, so we want to get strong.

Step two is to ask what training framework will ensure that we stick to the program.

Think of this like choosing the right plot of land for our building.

When I was growing up, there was this house that someone had built on a small island in the middle of the bay.

It was a fascinating thing; it gathered a lot of attention.

Although for as long as I knew of its existence, it was abandoned.

A valuable lesson in deciding the framework of your training plan is considering your ability to adhere to the structure.

A house on a lone island in the middle of the bay sounds wonderful until you realize just how much of a pain in the ass it is to live in it.

When we choose how often, where, and for how long we will train, it's a good idea to make choices that are practical rather than flashy.

You might hear about the world-class powerlifters who train six days a week and think, "Well, if I want to be as strong as possible, I should also train six days a week."

But if you're a busy professional who works 40 hours a week and has no prior training experience, this might be impractical.

So ask yourself: what can I confidently do?

If you want to get strong, I recommend starting with three training sessions a week. Once you prove that you can be consistent, you can bump that up to four, five, or even six as you see fit.

Now, in terms of accessibility, it might be attractive to do your workouts at home.

After all, you can do it after work, and once you're done, you can jump right into the shower and make some dinner.

But practically speaking, unless you have a complete home gym, your living room is a pretty shit place to get strong.

So this is where a gym comes in handy.

With a fully stocked gym, your potential for progress is virtually limitless.

But how long should you train each session?

If I were a complete beginner, I would shoot for somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes.

I've found that when people are new and their workouts take longer than that, they run out of steam.

Of course, as you progress, you can train longer to get more done, but I recommend keeping it below 90 minutes.

Past the 90-minute mark, you risk your fatigue outpacing your energy levels, and you'll need some form of intra-workout fuel.

Let's agree on 3 weekly sessions, 45-60 minutes, at a gym.

A side note on choosing a gym: When you first start out, signing up for the expensive gym with all the bells and whistles 30 minutes from your home is tempting. But in the beginning stages, it's about creating a consistent routine, and easy beats optimal ten times out of ten.

Awesome, so we've got our framework.

Our plot of land has been selected.

For step three, we need to determine our training volume (sets x reps) and intensity.

This is usually hard for beginners.

When beginners think of training programs, they almost exclusively think of exercises.

Sets, reps, and intensity are usually an afterthought.

But as you'll see, our volume and intensity set the foundation for the training plan and help clarify our exercise selection.

This is like designing the framework for our house.

If you've ever driven by a new building in the early stages of construction. You typically just see a wooden structure.

This is what we're after.

Attaching the bells and whistles later becomes much easier with a strong foundation.

But we can all agree that decorating before you even know where the kitchen is would be a waste of time.

So, when we determine our volume and intensity, we can quantify these things in several ways.

One of the most common ways is total weekly sets.

In other words, we will assign a specific amount of sets to each muscle group or movement pattern and then disperse those sets across our three training days.

If we're pursuing strength, it makes more sense to quantify sets using movement patterns or body regions rather than specific muscle groups.

A note on strength: Strength is task-specific. It is essentially a measure of force production from a muscle or group of muscles within a specific task. If we want to become stronger, we need to determine what movements we want to become stronger at.

Let's say we want to get stronger in the Big Three: Squat, Bench Press, and Deadlift. We can also add upper-body pulling to this list (think back training).

For each movement pattern, we'll assign a weekly set total.

A side note on volume landmarks: It can be a beneficial practice to combine weekly set totals for squats and deadlifts into one category due to the higher rates of fatigue on the central nervous system and the overlapping muscles involved.

A simple and scientifically supported place to start would be 10 weekly sets.

Beautiful. We have our weekly set totals sorted out.

Now, how do we choose intensity?

Intensity is the term we use to describe the weights we're lifting. It is usually expressed as a percentage of your 1 rep max (the most weight you can lift for a single rep in any given lift).

However, we're going to slow our roll on intensity for now.

If you're a beginner (like I assume you are), you may not have a clear idea of your one-rep max (1RM) for any of your lifts.

Hell, you might have never lifted a weight in your life.

So, what we can do instead is determine the rep ranges for our weekly sets.

Since strength is the main focus, we can divide our weekly sets into different rep ranges to ensure we cover a wider range of strength characteristics.

If we want to lift the heaviest loads possible, the 1-5 rep range is perfect.

If we want to build additional muscle to facilitate future strength gains, we can shoot for the 5-20 rep range.

We can do 20+ reps if we need to address muscular endurance to facilitate more productive sessions or better recovery.

These are not hard lines; they are simple ballpark ranges that help us categorize each exercise's role in the program.

These can be adjusted later to account for individual differences in response to the stimuli.

Since strength is our primary objective, we can issue ~60% of our weekly sets to the 1-5 rep range and ~40% to the 5-20 rep range.

As we train, if we determine that muscular endurance is needed, we can change some sets to the 20+ rep range.

And, of course, we can always shift the ratios.

Side note on the 20+ rep range: You may be wondering why I brought this rep range up if we didn't include it in our original design. There are two main reasons. First, doing over 20 reps sucks. There's no better way to ensure you don't want to come back to hit your next lift than grabbing a super light weight and doing a set that takes almost a full minute to perform. Second, if your baseline lifting experience is little to none, you will develop muscular endurance through any rep range. You could argue a third reason is that 20+ reps isn't specific to the goal of strength, which could be wrong or right depending on the individual and how they respond to different volumes.

This distribution allows us to ensure that the majority of volume is specific to the primary goal of strength.

Now that we've established our volume and intensity (based on rep ranges), we can determine the frequency of our training.

When I say frequency, I'm not referring to what we did earlier when we determined how many days a week we'd be training.

Frequency is how often you hit a specific movement pattern or muscle group.

So if we want to get stronger in our squats, we will probably want to hit squats at least 2x per week, deadlifts 1x per week, bench press 2x per week, and upper body pulling 3x per week.

With this in mind, we can come up with a split that fits our practical framework.

Or, regarding our architectural analogy, we can determine the dimensions of our foundation based on the plot of land we determined would best serve our project.

So a simple framework might be:

Mon: Squat, Bench, Pull

Wednesday: Deadlift, Pull

Friday: Bench, Squat, Pull

Amazing.

With this framework in place, we can layer on the volume we discussed earlier to get a more detailed picture.

Mon: Squat 3x1-5, Bench 3x5-10, Pull 3x5-10

Wednesday: Deadlift 4x1-5, Pull 4x1-5

Friday: Bench 4x1-5, Squat 3x5-10, Pull 3x10-20

This leaves us with a set total of:

Lower Body: 10 sets per week

Bench Press: 7 sets per week

Upper Pulling: 10 sets per week.

We can round out the rest of the bench press volume when we discuss accessory exercises.

Now by this point, we are pretty damn close to having a complete program.

Our next step is to choose our exercises.

Since we established our volume and intensity ahead of time, it is much easier now to review the exercises and choose those that fit nicely into each spot.

So, let's do just that.

For exercises in the 1-5 rep range, we want to choose highly loadable exercises. This will be our primary work.

So we might choose:

Monday: High Bar Back Squat 3x1-5

Wednesday: Conventional Deadlift 4x1-5, Pull-ups 4x1-5

Friday: Barbell Bench Press 3x1-5

For our 5-10 rep range, we want to choose compound exercises we can load but not at the same magnitude as our primary lifts. We can also consider our exercises for our 1-5 rep ranges and choose variations that offer a different (or complementary) training stimulus.

So we might choose:

Monday: Incline Dumbbell or Barbell Bench Press: 3x5-10, Dumbbell Row 3x5-10

Friday: Leg Press 3x5-10

Lastly, we can choose exercises for our 10-20 rep range. These will be more isolated in nature and may be challenging to perform with heavier loads.

So we might choose:

Friday: Single Arm Lat Pulldown: 3x10-20

Now we have a complete program.

Anyone can take this into the gym, and they'd be confident they have a well-rounded program that meets the needs of strength development.

Congrats, you have a home you can live in and be happy with.

Now, let's zoom out a little bit.

Up to this point, we've laid the groundwork for a program we can use today.

But what about a week from now? A month? What about a year later?

This is where progression comes in.

Progression is how we build on our training, session by session, week by week, and month by month.

This is often the least talked about point when reading program articles online.

You can think of this as an essential house component, like your water or heating system.

These need to be paid attention to consistently and can be changed as you realize what works or doesn't work for you.

So, how do we choose a progression method?

Well, sadly for beginners out there, the list of progression methods is long.

But on a brighter note, most of them are not that different.

One of the most classic progression formats is Linear Periodization.

This is the practice of gradually increasing weight as you decrease reps.

So, in week 1, you might start with 3x5 @ 95 lbs for your squat.

And your progression could look something like this:

Week 1: 3x5@95

Week 2: 3x4@100

Week 3: 3x3@105

Week 4: 3x2@110.

You get it.

This is a perfectly acceptable progression method. However, I think it presents some problems for beginners.

First, when you're a beginner, you're very much in the motor learning stage.

This means your primary gains are going to come from improving your technique.

Many people don't realize that as weight increases, the skill demands for movement increase.

This means that increasing weight from week to week can potentially interfere with technical development.

That's why, for beginners, I'm a huge fan of double progressions.

The double progression is where we increase reps before we increase the load.

This progression method also fits perfectly with the framework we've created thus far.

So, with a double progression, you set a specific rep range and keep the weight the same until you can complete all sets for that rep range with at least 1 rep left in the tank (excluding the last set).

The above example might look like this:

Week 1: x5,5,5@95

Week 2: x4,3,3@100

Week 3: x5,5,5@100

Week 4: x3,3,3@105

This will force you to dial your technique in at a specific weight before you can progress to the next weight.

You can take this further by adding a specific RPE (Rate of perceived exertion) or RIR (Reps in reserve).

Let's say for squats you want to set your RPE at 8 (this means on a difficulty scale of 1-10, each set should be an 8 or roughly 2 reps left in the tank)

Then, instead of progressing when you hit the prescribed reps, you can only progress weight if all sets are 8 or lower.

This additional step helps ensure that we aren't forcing sets when our technique is not where it needs to be.

This will naturally be a slower progression, but it sets you up for long-term success.

Side note on setting RPEs: RPE or RIR represents our proximity to failure. And there are two types of failure. Muscular failure and technical failure. Muscular failure is when the muscle is truly not able to perform any more reps. Technical failure is when we can complete more reps, but only if we compromise technique. More skill-based lifts (like squats and deadlifts) can be judged based on technical failure, while more isolation-based exercises (like bicep curls and lateral raises) can be judged based on muscular failure.

Okay, so with this established, we have a (more) complete program.

This is something you can take into the gym to ensure that you have a well-rounded program that covers all of your bases.

As well as a plan on adjusting weekly as you get stronger.

But we don't need to stop there.

At this stage, we can add layers of detail that will further enhance the quality of our program.

At this stage, we can consider tempos, rest times, or special methods (sometimes called intensification methods).

We can think of this as making the place our own; we add some paint, pick out our furniture, etc.

Side note: Some angry little elves on the internet might yell that tempo and rest times are just as essential as all of the other components we've listed and that making them an afterthought is wrong. They would be correct, but not really. If you're like me, and your training experience in the gym started by fucking around and finding out as a teenager, then you know that a lot of shit will work. Tempos and rest times are things that you'll incorporate inherently. In other words, if you're exercising, you'll inevitably perform a tempo and include rest times. A clear reason for them is great, but they have a significantly smaller effect size than your intensity, frequency, volume, and exercise selection.

Now, let's get into the details.

A tempo is the pace at which you perform a rep. It is typically written with 3 to 4 numbers that look like this: 1-0-1 or 1-0-1-1 (sometimes coaches write it without dashes, like 1011, which I think is insane behavior).

Each number represents a phase of the movement.

Every movement you'll perform in the gym has 4 portions to it.

The eccentric (sometimes called the negative) portion is where the muscles are being lengthened.

The isometric (sometimes called the transition) where the muscle does not change length.

The concentric (sometimes called the positive) where the muscle is shortening.

And the phase inbetween reps.

So, for example, if you're squatting and the tempo is written as 2-1-1-1, you would lower your body for 2 seconds, pause for 1 second at the bottom of the movement, then ascend for 1 second, and take 1 second between reps.

Be conscious that not all movements begin with an eccentric muscle action.

For example, deadlifts and chin-ups start with a concentric (or shortening) muscle action, so you'll need to understand how you or your coach is writing your tempos (I personally always leave the first number as the eccentric, no matter what).

A note on tempos: pretty much all eccentric and concentric portions will take 1 second if you're doing a "normal" rep. So 1-0-1 is standard.

Now, maybe I'm just lazy, but I'm more of a three-number kind of guy because I've never had to force anyone to take longer or shorter rest between reps, and I think it's overkill.

So, what tempo do you choose?

Well, tempos can serve a wide range of purposes, so it's hard to give you any definitive guidance, but let's give some thought to the sample program we're writing.

We've made two assumptions that can help us choose our tempos.

First, you're a beginner; second, our goal is strength.

Beginners suck at lifting.

This isn't an attack, just a fact of life.

You used to suck at walking too, but you figured that one out (after 12-15 months, presumably, which is low-key embarrassing).

To help us increase our motor learning in the weight room, we can add slower tempos as we groove in our technique.

By slowing down the eccentric or adding pauses to our lifts, we can help groove in good movement patterns early, facilitating strength gains down the line.

Something as simple as adding in a tempo of 3-2-1 (lower for 3 seconds, pause at the transition for 2, and ascend for 1) for a few weeks can be great for development.

Now, what about rest times?

Well, our primary considerations for rest times are: Did you rest long enough to recover for the next set? And did you not rest so long that your body started to cool down?

The former is what happens when you're impatient or pressed for time.

The latter is what happens when you start doom-scrolling between sets.

This time range usually falls between 45 seconds and 3 minutes for most people with most exercises.

You may have read an Olympic lifting article discussing the recovery duration of the ATP-CP system and concluded that you need to rest for 7 minutes between sets, but I promise that if you're a beginner, you'll be okay with less.

However, if you want to take your rest times a step further, you can consider how they affect muscular endurance or work capacity as a whole.

For example, if you're relatively inactive and start lifting, you might have wonderfully horrid conditioning.

In this case, shorter rest times can be beneficial. This forces your body to work harder with less recovery between sets.

I would not recommend this for your primary lifts, as you'll want to be energized to maximize your technique, but it can be an excellent strategy for your accessory and isolation work.

But again, there realistically won't be some magic number I can give you.

It's wiser to self-assess and limit your rest so that you're still somewhat fatigued going into the next set.

If your conditioning is not an issue, then it's perfectly fine to take your rest set by set based on how you feel.

Now, let's talk about specialty methods.

This is akin to adding bells and whistles to your house.

Maybe you install a hot tub or buy a big ass TV.

Are they absolutely necessary? Probably not.

Can they make things more enjoyable? Potentially.

Specialty methods are things like super sets, pre-exhaust sets, myoreps, drop sets, and density sets.

Not all beginners will need these, but I'll run through some examples that I like for beginners and why.

One of the main training considerations is teaching them to challenge themselves sufficiently.

Most people are either "shy" lifters or "aggressive" lifters.

The shy lifters will call a true RPE 5 a 10 and claim that their toe hurts too much to squat because they stubbed it the other day.

Aggressive lifters will try to max out every week and ignore the fact that every set of squats leaves their back in agony.

One is not better or worse; they both come with their own bag of shit.

But it's important to know how to design training to move yourself along the spectrum based on your needs.

If you're a shy lifter, specialty methods can be great because they often force you to work harder than you otherwise might.

For example, I love myoreps or supersets for shy beginners because it forces them to fight through the burn whether they like it or not.

A myorep set is when you perform an exercise for a set of 10-20, then only rest a few seconds, then repeat for sets of 5-10. E.g., Bicep curls for 1x10-20@15 lbs, immediately followed by 2x5-10@15lbs. Rest times are limited to 15 seconds or less.

If you're an aggressive lifter, you might use methods that allow you to express all that intensity but in a format that limits your ability to chuck on as much weight as possible.

As an example, I like to give aggressive lifters Pre-exhaust super sets. This allows them to chase that burn but at a more manageable load.

A pre-exhaust superset is when you pair 2 exercises for the same muscle group and perform them back to back with no rest. The first exercise is an isolation exercise performed for reps of 10-20. The second exercise is a compound movement performed for reps of 5-10. For example, Lateral raises for 10-20 are immediately paired with overhead presses for 5-10.

Okay great. We've covered (almost) every component of our program.

Now, we can finally address individual differences and accessory exercises.

The main reason we waited this long to bring this up is that it is vital to ensure we have all of the core components of our plan in place before adding a bunch of individualized factors.

The necessity for these components will also change as you develop.

This is like buying new furniture when the old pieces are getting worn.

Or planting a garden because, hell, it's springtime.

Individual differences are contextual.

As we progress our training, we might develop minor kinks in our technique.

We might notice our weight shifts forward on our squats or we lose tension in our deadlifts.

We can now add small changes or accessory movements to improve those characteristics.

For our squats, we could add 2-3 sets of goblet squats to our program to train us to keep our weight backward when we squat.

Maybe we can add a pause off the floor or use blocks to help teach our body to create tension more effectively for our deadlifts.

Just like you might plant a garden when the weather gets warmer, you might also stop gardening when the weather changes again.

In the same way, you might add goblet squats to help you control your center of mass, but remove them when you see your squat technique improve.

You can also factor in accessory volume for muscle groups only indirectly trained in your compound lifts.

You could add some bicep curls or cable crunches.

Maybe you hit some calves or loaded carries.

The world is slowly becoming your oyster.

Now, don't think I forgot about those 3 missing sets of bench presses.

On par with individual differences, we can delegate sets to muscle groups that we want to develop.

Perhaps your main goal is to get stronger, but you'd also like to look bigger.

One of the best ways to increase how big you look is by developing your shoulders.

So you could take those last two sets and use them for an overhead press variation.

As you can see, we've slowly progressed from more clear-cut ideas on how to design a program into a more creative space where we can make choices based on personal preferences or strengths and weaknesses.

By flowing in this manner, we can ensure we have all of our big rocks covered while leaving room to get creative and enjoy the process.

Congrats. You now have a beautiful home in which you're happy to live.

A final note of thanks: If you've read The Muscle & Strength Pyramid by Eric Helms, Andy Morgan, and Andrea Valdez, or Scientific Principles of Strength Training by Mike Israetel, James Hoffmann, and Chad Wesley Smith, then you'll pick up on a lot of similarities in the concepts they explain. These books are an absolute must for anyone wanting to better understand how to program for themselves or their clients. I can't thank these folks enough for providing so much foundation for what you've read here. All credit to them.