Workout Construction

Hey all!

Thanks for so many awesome questions! There were a few questions about exercise method and frequency, and so I wanted to give a broad overview that should help. As we’ve seen, our goals and body types are all different. I’ll hit some of the basics of building an exercise routine, but remember to listen to your body and adjust to your needs.

The typical recommendation is to work each body “part” 2 or more times per week. When working that body part, you should perform 7-9 sets total, using 2-3 different exercises during the exercise session. For example, when working the chest area, you may do a bench chest press for 3 sets, bench fly for 3 sets, and then 2 rounds of push ups. You want to pair up opposing body parts as much as possible: chest and back, biceps and triceps, quads and hamstrings, overhead press and lat pull downs.

When looking at repetitions per set, the math gets a bit trickier and more personalized. If you’re trying to build strength, you want to do about 6 repetitions per set. To build larger muscles, 8-12. To build endurance, 12-15 repetitions. In all variations, you want the weight to be heavy enough that the last 3-4 repetitions are really difficult.

Finally, body type throws a huge wrinkle into all of this. There is a continuum: You have guys who are skinny and have a hard time gaining weight all the way to bigger guys who have a hard time losing weight. While we may not be happy with our individual genetic lottery, we can work with it through a good training program. It all lies in understanding your metabolism.

As mentioned in the nutrition post, your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is your calorie furnace. It will burn 60-80% of your daily calories. For those who are skinny and trying to gain muscle mass, try to complete your workout in under 45 minutes, and don’t add in additional cardio. For those who are trying to lose body fat, add cardio for 30 minutes AFTER a strength training workout. Cardiovascular activity is essential for good heart health and circulation, but steady state cardio does very little in the way of calorie burning.

All that being said, I look forward to seeing your push-up / squat challenge numbers this week. You can do the circuit every day! Get the practice in now, because next week there will be a challenge twist!