By Michael Mejia, Men's Health
Here's a sign of the times: You can actually hire people to come to
your house and organize your closets. They'll also do your garage,
your attic, and the shed in your backyard. These people are tough on
pack rats. They ask questions like "Why do you have this box of dog
leashes, but no dog?"
My job isn't all that different. As a trainer, if I see something in
a client's workout-or my own-that doesn't belong there, I get rid of
it. If I see a redundant exercise, it's gone. Disorganized workout? I
organize it. And if I see a client doing a program he got out of some
old bodybuilding magazine, I throw the whole thing out and start over.
I can't come to your gym and fix your workout (or organize your
closets). But I can tell you what you need to know to organize your
own regimen, based on your goals, your available time, and your
experience. I'll even throw in six sample workouts for beginner
through advanced lifters. Now, about those closets . . .
Goals
I assume the closet lady would start by asking, "What do you need
this closet to do for you?" Me, I'd ask the same question,
substituting the word "workout" for "closet." Usually, these goals
fall into three categories:
Lose weight: If you're a beginner, start with a circuit routine in
which you do 10 to 12 exercises one after the other, 10 to 15
repetitions per set, with little or no rest in between. Do two or
three circuits.
If you're more advanced, try supersets. In these, you do two
exercises back-to-back, rest 60 seconds, and then repeat once or
twice. There are many ways to do supersets, but for fat loss, I'd
like to see you use as much muscle as possible. One way is to pair
exercises that work completely different muscles, such as squats and
seated rows.
Build muscle: For most men, I recommend exercises that allow you to
do eight to 12 repetitions per set. You can do them as straight sets-
complete a set, rest about 60 seconds, do the next set of the same
thing, and keep going that way until you've finished all your sets
and are ready to move on to the next exercise.
If you have more experience, try supersets, but not the way you did
them for fat loss. Pair synergistic exercises-two moves that work the
same muscles. Usually, the first is a compound move to work a lot of
muscles, the second a single-joint exercise to focus on one large
muscle. So barbell bench presses might be followed by dumbbell flies.
Shoulder presses could lead in to lateral raises.
Gain strength: There's no secret here-heavy weights, low repetitions
(usually three to five per set for the most important moves, such as
squats, deadlifts, and bench presses), and longer rest (up to 4
minutes) between sets. You don't have to do every exercise this way,
of course. Start with low reps on your main moves, then do more
repetitions with lighter weights and shorter rest periods on less
important ones.
Available Time
This is akin to the closet lady saying, "What's your budget?" Before
I design a program, I need to know how much time you're going to put
in. I'm going to assume everyone is willing to work out 40 to 60
minutes per session.
To me, that's a finite window, just as your closet is a finite size.
If you want to do longer workouts, great, but I usually don't go in
that direction. If I can't give you a system that gets it done in an
hour or less, there's something wrong with my program. To me, the big
variable here is how many days a week you're able and willing to work
out.
Two days a week: No matter your level or goals, do total-body
workouts. You want to hit your major muscles twice a week; otherwise,
they'll be completely rested between workouts and will have no reason
to grow.
If you're a beginner, stick to circuits, as I recommended above for
fat loss. But if you're more interested in building muscle than in
losing fat, I suggest doing sets of eight to 12 reps, with perhaps a
little more rest in between exercises.
Another option for saving time is to do antagonistic supersets. These
pair up movements that involve opposite muscle actions, such as
situps and back extensions.
Three days a week: If you're not a beginner, you can adopt a split
routine. The easiest to remember is the upper-body/ lower-body split.
You alternate between them, so if you're training three times a week,
you'll do upper-lower-upper 1 week, then lower-upper-lower the next.
If you're working out four times a week, you'll do upper on Monday
and Thursday, and lower on Tuesday and Friday.
What you do during those split routines depends on your goals
(explained above) and your experience (explained below).
Experience
Beginners make gains with just about any type of program, so it's
best to keep it simple and safe-fairly high repetitions, basic
exercises, total-body workouts. The more experience you have, the
more you'll benefit from heavier weights and lower repetitions, more
advanced exercises and techniques, and split routines.
Another issue is recovery. A beginner can recover in 48 hours and do
fine with three total-body workouts a week. A more advanced lifter
needs to give his muscles more time to recover, since he's hitting
them harder.
Also, the more experienced you are, the less time you should spend on
a program before moving on. A beginner can do the same program for 6
to 10 weeks without hitting a plateau. Grizzled iron vets may need to
move on every 2 or 3 weeks. You probably fall somewhere in between.