There is so much advice out there about weight training programs – the best ones for building glutes, getting strong, getting skinny, etc. There is no ‘best program’ – it’s all about choosing the right structure for you personally. 

After all, if you can’t or don’t stick to it, it won’t work at all. 

This post is a detailed rundown on how to build a training program that works! If you want to watch the video version, you’ll see that linked below:

CHOOSING A WEIGHT TRAINING PROGRAM STRUCTURE

For this post, let’s begin with the first question… 

1. Ask yourself;
   1. How many days per week can I train?
   2. How much time can I REALISTICALLY spend?
   3. What is my goal!?

Write that down. Based on that, here is my recommended structure; 

• Training 2 times per week – two full body will priority on posterior chain
• 3 times per week – Upper, lower, upper on rotation (experience) or 3 full body (new)
• 4 times per week – 2 upper and 2 lower
• 5 times per week – 2 upper and 3 lower

And, I am going to assume your goal is to; 

1. Look better
2. Get stronger
3. Feel better

Correct? Either way, this structure will work wonders. 

THE MUSCLE GROUPS AND HOW TO PRIORITISE THEM

There are 10 muscle groups to focus on in the gym:

• Back
• Chest
• Shoulders
• Biceps 
• Triceps
• Abdominals
• Quads
• Hamstrings
• Calves
• Glutes

From there, we have a hierarchy. The most important for wellbeing, posture, performance and aesthetics are (in this order); 

1. Glutes, back, abdominals, hamstrings (your ‘Posterior Chain’ – see image below)
2. Quads, shoulders, triceps, chest
3. Biceps and calves. 

So when you build a program, I would focus on those top muscles first. If you train more than 3 days per week, you may include all muscles. If you train twice, you might not worry about your calves and biceps.    

Read Why You Need a Strong Posterior Chain if You Want to Get Strong for more information on this!

ELEMENTS OF A TRAINING PROGRAM

Training program has three elements; 

1. Priming exercise(s)
2. Focus exercise(s)
3. Accessory exercises

The priming exercises are to establish blood flow and a mental connection to stabilising muscles, so that you connect them currently during your focus exercises

Focus exercise is your most complex exercise, generally the one that yields the most benefit for you. You will have 1 of these if you’re new, and 2 if you’re more experienced (perhaps you’ll have squat and deadlift in one day).

Accessories are those simpler movements that help make the body stronger, which are possible with only 60% capacity. This is because the focus exercises, if you did it properly, will take most of your energy. 

In my PT sessions we generally do 3-4 exercises, sometimes only 2 – not including priming exercises. When you move well, you don’t need to do as many exercises as the body is taxed from just a few compound movements! 

Choosing your priming exercises

The muscles you need to sort are postural – the glutes, abdominals and middle back. If training upper body, you want to target the middle back, if training lower you want to get the abs and glutes full of blood. They should be light and not challenging for your muscle tissue. 

Examples for lower body are band walks, single leg deadlifts, single leg glute bridges, or if you’re new just a plain old glute bridge with both legs on the floor will do. For abs, you don’t want to do crunching or twisting, just engage the lower abdominals but don’t stress them out

Examples of upper body are banded mid rows, single arm rows, or rear flyes off the floor.

Choosing a focus exercise

These are generally compound movements (using more than one joint and engaging multiple muscle groups at a time). In order to do a compound movement well, you have to have your whole posterior chain connected and this is why they’re so taxing. 

• Beginners lower body – Box squat, lunge, hip hinge, leg press
• Advanced lower body – BB squat, deadlift, lunge, hip thrust, rack pull, etc 
• Beginners upper body – Shoulder press, chest press/bench, lat pulldown, rows
• Advanced upper body – Overhead press, bench press, chinups, BB rows

The advanced movements are all technically full body exercises. 

Balance the program based on your available time

How long are you training for? 30, 45, or 60-minutes? (don’t go over 60 minutes please!) 

• For a 30 minute session, you could fit in warmup, priming, one focus and 1-2 accessories
• For a 45 minute session, you could fit in warmup, priming, 1-2 focus and 3-4 accessories
• For a 60 minute session, you could fit in warmup, priming, 1-2 focus and 3-6 accessories

SORTING OUT YOUR SETS, REPS & REST

Definitions:

• ‘REP’ – 1 repetition
• ‘SET’ – group of repetitions
• ‘REST’ – how long you wait before going again

Generally speaking; 

• For beginners, we do 8-12 reps on each exercise
• For advanced lifters, we do between 3-5 reps for focus exercises, and 6-12 for accessory exercises. 

Rest; The heavier you lift and the harder the exercise, the longer you need to rest. A powerlifter can rest up to 10 minutes in between sets. A bodybuilder will rest between 45 sec-2 mins. Rest times need to be factored into your workouts when you’re making sure it fits within the time frame. 

I suggest; 

• 30-45-sec for priming exercises
• 2-minutes rest for a focus exercise (3-minutes if you’re advanced)
• 1 minute to 90-seconds for accessories 

So that’s your goals, days per week, time per session, and sets/reps/rest covered. Now let’s look at how you build a program. I will give one example and you should be able to do it from there. 

WHAT IS THE RIGHT BUILDING TIME?

Let’s say we are doing 4 days per week, 45-minute session

Because we are doing 4 days per week we can include all muscle groups. We are going to focus first on back, glutes and hamstrings (overall legs) and abs, as these are a priority. We will add in shoulders as a priority as this looks good too. 

Upper Body Day 1

• Priming exercise – banded mid row for 3×15 reps, plank (2 x max), rest 45 sec
• Focus exercise – BB mid row (4×8) and incline DB chest press (4×8), rest 2 minutes
• Accessories – Seated V-bar row, DB shoulder press, cable tricep pressdown (3×8-10), rest 60-90 seconds

Lower Body Day 1

• Priming exercise – Band walks (2×20), single leg deadlift (2×6-10), rest 45 sec
• Focus exercise – Squat (4×5), Hip Thrust (3×8), rest 2 minutes
• Accessories – Leg curl, calf raises (3×10), rest 60-90 seconds

Upper Body Day 2

• Priming exercise – banded mid row (3×15 reps), plank (2 x max) rest 45 sec
• Focus exercise – Assisted Chin-ups (4×5), BB Overhead Press (3×8), rest 2 minutes
• Accessories – Pushups, DB 1 arm row, DB Bicep curls (3×8), rest 60-90 seconds

Lower Body Day 2

• Priming exercise – Dead bugs (2×10), single leg hip thrust (2×8-10), rest 45 sec
• Focus exercise – Deadlift (4×5), rest 2 minutes
• Accessories – Leg Press, Leg Curl, Glute kickbacks (3×10), rest 60-90 seconds

Once you finish your program all the way through, take note of how long it took, and add or subtract sets where needed. If it’s way too long, take out a whole exercise (calves or biceps for example). Don’t ever take out your priming or focus exercises! You just adapt according to your needs and schedule. 

Remember it’s not about QUANTITY, it’s about QUALITY

A few extra notes; 

• If you do full body, you pick 1 upper body focus, and 1 lower body focus, and you would do priming exercises for both upper and lower body (superset them)

• If you do your priming exercises and you can’t feel the target muscles (glutes, lower abs and middle back), you may have an issue with tight muscles, which are pulling your posture out of whack and making it impossible to reach them. To fix this, watch my video on how to strengthen your glutes:

LASTLY, PROGRAM LENGTH

Programs should last you up to 16 weeks. You spend 1 month getting used to it, then a few months building strength in each exercise. You can change them more frequently, but if you do it too much it’s overwhelming and you don’t get good at anything. 

When you’re ready for a new program, start this process again. You can leave the same focus exercises or switch them out for new ones. For example, for squats; 

• Repeat them, just keep building, or even lower the rep range from 5 reps to 3
• Change them altogether (lunges for example) 
• Add in a variation – front squat, pin squat, box squat, safety bar squat, goblet squat, high bar to low bar, low bar to high bar, etc. 

If you’re interested in diving deeper here, check out my post 5 Reasons You’re Not Seeing Results in the Gym – where I go over the most common reasons women don’t progress. 

So that’s how you build a program! To recap; 

1. Decide on your goal
2. Work out how often you want to train
3. Decide on a session length 
4. Choose a split
5. Choose your priming exercises
6. Choose your focus exercises
7. Choose your accessories
8. Choose your rep ranges and rest times for each exercise
9. Start your program, and make adjustments as you go!

That’s all I have for this article (it’s a lot). 

I hope you build yourself an amazing program and let me know in the comments if you give it a try. If you want specific advice on how to build muscle as a woman, check out this video after you finish reading:

And check out the Female Training Blueprint – my online course for mastering the gym. 

Jen x