How to build your own training programme, step by step

You have a gym membership, three or four free slots in the week, and no plan. Or you have a plan you picked up somewhere, half of which doesn't suit you and all of which takes eighty minutes. By the end of this you should have one sheet of paper: exercise names, set counts, rep ranges, and a rule that tells you when to add weight.

Programming isn't a secret formula. It's a short sequence of decisions made in a particular order, because each one narrows the next. Start by choosing exercises instead of counting days and you end up with something that looks clever and doesn't fit into a real week.

Step 1: count the days you'll actually turn up

Not the days you'd like. The days you'd manage in an average, awkward week — the one with late meetings, a sick child and bad sleep. If that's two, build for two. Three sessions you repeat for twelve weeks beat five sessions you abandon after three.

Decide the session length too. For most people 45 to 75 minutes including the warm-up is honest. That number caps how many exercises you're allowed to write down later, so put it on the page now.

Step 2: pick the split that fits those days

A split is just a timetable — what goes on which day. The number of days decides it, not the other way round.

• Two or three days: full body every session. Everything gets hit two or three times a week, which is the most efficient arrangement there is for a newer lifter. We've laid out the details in our guide to training full body three times a week.
• Four days: upper and lower, twice each. Unglamorous and extremely reliable — see the upper/lower guide with an eight-week plan. If you'd rather carve up the muscle groups differently across four sessions, there's a case for that too, covered in how to arrange muscle groups over four weekly sessions.
• Five or six days: only here do push/pull/legs arrangements earn their keep, and mostly because they shorten each session rather than because they grow more muscle.

One rule settles most arguments: every muscle group gets trained at least twice a week. Splits that respect it are candidates; splits that don't aren't.

Step 3: build the skeleton from five movement patterns

Rather than picking exercises by mood, fill five empty slots. A full-body session wants a squat or lunge, a hip hinge (deadlift, hip thrust, good morning), a horizontal press (bench, press-ups), a horizontal pull (a row), and a vertical press or pull (overhead press, pull-ups, lat pulldown). One trunk exercise goes at the end.

With the slots defined, choosing gets easy: take the version you can perform cleanly, that doesn't hurt, and that you'll be able to repeat in a fortnight with a bit more weight on it. Barbells, dumbbells and machines are tools, not tribes.

On four days you simply break the same skeleton in half. Lower days carry the squat and the hinge plus calves and hamstring work; upper days carry the presses and rows plus shoulders and arms.

Step 4: set weekly sets per muscle group

This is where most homemade plans fall over. Don't count sets per session — count them per muscle group per week. The evidence is strongest for roughly 10 to 20 hard sets a week per group, and beginners progress happily on 8 to 10.

In practice: three sets of rows and three sets of pull-ups on Monday, the same again on Thursday, and your back is on twelve weekly sets. That's plenty. Beyond twenty you rarely gain more, and you reliably gain longer sessions and worse recovery.

Small muscles — biceps, triceps, calves, side delts — pick up work from the big lifts, so 6 to 12 direct sets a week usually covers them.

Step 5: reps, load and how close to failure

For muscle growth the useful range is wider than gym folklore suggests. Research generally shows similar growth anywhere from 6 to 20 reps, provided the set finishes close to failure. For maximal strength, heavier loads and 3 to 6 reps have the edge.

A workable default: barbell compounds at 5 to 8 reps, mid-sized exercises at 8 to 12, isolation work and anything that loads a joint in a stretched position at 12 to 20.

Proximity to failure matters more than the number itself. Finish most sets with one to three reps left in the tank — you could do more, but you stop. Take the occasional isolation set to failure if you like; don't do it on squats or deadlifts.

Step 6: order and rest

Whatever matters most goes first, while you're fresh. For most people that's a compound barbell lift. Isolation and trunk work go last. If one muscle group is genuinely lagging, give it the opening slot in one session a week.

Rest 2 to 3 minutes after the big lifts and 60 to 90 seconds on isolation work. Shorter rests don't make a better session, only a more tiring one. If time is tight, cut an exercise rather than squeezing the rest periods across the board.

Step 7: write the progression rule before you lift anything

A plan without a rule for adding load is a list of exercises. Write it as one sentence: when I hit the top of the rep range in all three sets with clean technique, next time I add 2.5 kg to isolation lifts and 5 kg to the big ones, and start again at the bottom of the range.

That's the simplest version and it will carry you through a first year. When it stalls — and it will — there are calmer ways to keep moving, which we covered in the piece on progressive overload without hitting a wall.

Keep a log alongside it. A notebook, your phone's notes app, an application, anything. Without last week's numbers, progression is guesswork.

Step 8: give it six weeks, then change one thing

Judge a programme on numbers, not on how the sessions felt. After six to eight weeks, read the log. If loads or reps have crept up on most lifts, the plan works and needs nothing.

If they're flat, change one variable. More often than not the problem is sleep or food rather than the programme. If it is the programme, add two to four weekly sets to the stalled group, or cut volume if you're permanently battered. Change several things at once and you'll never know which one helped.

Where people go wrong

• Too many exercises, too few sets each. Eight different movements for one set apiece does very little. Five movements for three sets does more.
• Rewriting the plan every fortnight. Bodies respond to repetition with slightly more load, not to novelty.
• Pressing far more than pulling. If the plan is built around bench and press-ups, match it with at least as much rowing — one of the few things that genuinely pays off for shoulder health in the gym.
• Treating the warm-up as a ceremony. Five minutes of easy cardio and two or three lighter sets of the first exercise. Anything longer is stealing time from the session.
• Copying someone else's plan without their context. A programme written for six years of training and six free days is not your programme.

When to see a doctor

Get checked before carrying on if you have chest pain, dizziness or unusual breathlessness on exertion, if you're recovering from surgery or an injury, if you're pregnant, or if you have pain that has lasted more than two or three weeks, wakes you at night, or travels down an arm or leg. Numbness or weakness in a limb isn't something to train through.

Common questions

Do I need to swap exercises to keep the muscle guessing?

No. Muscle doesn't get confused; it responds to tension and fatigue. Swap an exercise when something hurts, when you've been stuck for months, or when boredom is making you skip sessions.

How much cardio can I add?

Two or three sessions of 20 to 40 minutes a week won't cost most people any muscle. If it lands on a leg day, put it after the weights or in the other half of the day.

What if I miss a session?

Shift everything along by a day and carry on. Don't merge two sessions into one, and don't make up for it with extra sets next time.

Do I still need a coach if I have a plan?

For squat, deadlift and press technique, a few hours with a decent coach beats months of watching clips. For the timetable itself, you don't need to pay anyone.

The short version

Start from the days you realistically have, choose the split that matches them, and make sure every muscle group comes round twice a week. Fill the five movement slots, aim for 10 to 20 weekly sets per group, work in the 5 to 20 rep range with one to three reps left in reserve, and rest between 60 seconds and three minutes.

Write the progression rule before your first session, log everything, and leave the plan alone for at least six weeks. A modest plan you complete thirty times beats a perfect one that never leaves the notebook.