Personal Trainer Tips: How to design an exercise program
How to design an exercise program – Designing your own exercise program is rewarding, and can save you from having to hire a personal trainer. If you need to figure out what your options are or how to structure an exercise routine, I will give you all the options available.
Ultimately, when it comes to losing weight, nutrition is the most important aspect. Still, in an ideal world, you will do both exercise and follow a good diet.
In this article, I will cover two main points.
- Cardio training
- Strength training
For cardio training, I will cover:
- Types of cardio training you can choose from if you want to train at home, in a gym or outdoors
- The importance of selecting the right intensity for cardio to maximise calories burned.
- How to do HIIT
For Strength training, I will cover the following:
- The importance of doing strength training
- Types of strength training
- How to choose the right intensity for strength training
Let’s get started with this guide on how to design an exercise program.
Setting the Foundation
If you want to lose weight, try to be realistic about your exercise plan. Try to take into consideration the following things:
- Your current fitness levels
- Your current goals
- Your time commitments
The last one is particularly important because you need time to fit exercise into your lifestyle to make it happen.
Things to consider:
- Work commitments
- family commitments
- The time it will take you to get to the gym
- Will you work out during your lunch break
- Is before work better for you compared to after work
- Can you cycle to work in order to use your commute to work as a way to fit exercise in?
1) Define Your Goals
If you want to burn fat, you should spend most of your time doing weight training. If you want to increase your energy levels and stamina, you will need to do some cardio training.
However, suppose you have had an injury in the past, and part of your goal is to avoid aggravating that injury. In that case, you will need to incorporate some core work into your routine.
2) Consider Your Current Fitness Level
As a trainer, I have to ensure that the exercise routines that I put together for my clients are safe for their current levels of fitness.
If I get this wrong, it could lead to my clients getting demotivated at best, or at worst, they could hurt themselves and get injured.
Suppose you are new to exercise or have a pre-existing injury. In that case, you must start at the right intensity, and doing some type of assessment is a good way to achieve this.
Secondly, starting your exercise routine with an assessment also allows you to test your improvements in fitness later.
Here are some simple tests you may want to consider to test stamina, muscular endurance, strength and flexibility:
- The one-mile endurance run or walk test
- Abdominal Strength Test(4 Level)
- Push-up Test(at home)
- Back Scratch Test
Note: All of these tests are appropriate for beginners. If you have the help of a training partner or fitness instructor, these tests will be easier to carry out.
Once you have assessed your fitness level, it’s important to start at an appropriate intensity and difficulty level.
I know that you want to do well with your training and want to see results as quickly as possible. However, try not to start too aggressively, as this can lead to injury.
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so take your time and trust the process.
Introducing Cardio Exercise
Cardiovascular Benefits for Weight Loss
Here is a scientific fact that you will like. For every litre of oxygen that your body consumes, you will burn 5 calories.
We burn calories when heat is generated by our bodies. During exercise, heat is created, your heart rate accelerates, and you burn calories.
Calorie expenditure is proportional to the oxygen requirement of the body.
When the intensity of your exercise increases, your body requires a greater amount of oxygen to maintain exercise, so therefore, more calories are burned.
At lower intensity, you burn fewer calories because your body breathes in fewer litres of air.
Over time, this sustained increase in heart rate leads to an increase in your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Your BMR is the number of calories your body burns at rest to maintain vital functions.
By elevating your BMR through regular cardio workouts, you create a calorie deficit, which is crucial for losing weight.
Moreover, cardio exercise helps improve your cardiovascular health, strengthens your heart and lungs, and enhances your overall fitness level.
To put the calorie-burning power of cardio into perspective, consider this: a 30-minute moderate-intensity jog can burn around 300-400 calories, depending on your weight and pace.
By incorporating a variety of cardio exercises into your exercise routine to lose weight, such as brisk walking, dancing, or kickboxing, you can keep your workouts engaging and maximise your calorie expenditure.
For a thorough understanding of how to measure maximum heart rate and training intensity for cardiovascular training, please look at this Wikipedia page for more information.
Monitoring the intensity of your cardiovascular workouts
The Ultimate Guide To Designing Your Own Exercise Routine
In addition to working as a personal trainer, I am also a spin instructor. There are people in my classes who love spin and find it easy to stick to an exercise schedule because they love what they do.
I also know so many people who hate spin but love other types of exercise. Find what works for you, and you will find that you will stick to it.
Consider getting yourself a heart rate monitor so that you can measure the intensity of exercise. The speed of your heart rate is a good way to monitor how difficult your exercise routine is.
There are different training zones to give you an idea of how hard you are training. Training intensity is divided into different training zones depending on difficulty.
Click here for a more detailed explanation of training intensity for cardiovascular workouts.
Best Exercises To Lose Weight For Cardio Training
1. Running:
Running is a great form of exercise and one of the easiest types of exercise to get into. All you need is the right workout gear. You don’t need a gym membership; however, if you are afraid to run outdoors in the rain, you can use a treadmill.
Click here if you want to know how to run to lose weight. Also, I have some different running workouts you may like to try.
2. Cycling:
You can easily incorporate cycling into your day by riding to work rather than taking public transport. Get yourself a heart rate monitor and use the training zone table above to monitor intensity.
3. Swimming:
If you are carrying a lot of weight, you will find that water is easy on your joints. The only downside is that you need good technique to get the most out of exercise.
It may be worth hiring a swimming instructor to improve your technique, but there is no doubt that swimming is a great exercise for weight loss.
4. Skipping:
I have a lot of experience with skipping from my childhood, but most importantly from boxing. Skipping ropes are cheap to buy and great for burning calories.
Although swimming is more technical than swimming, there is a certain amount of coordination involved, so it may be worth watching a few videos on YouTube. Overall, skipping is a great exercise to get fit and burn belly fat.
Long Steady State Cardio Exercise Vs HIIT For Fat Loss
There are two types of training for cardio. You can either do interval training or low-intensity steady-state training (LISS).
In this article, we will look at HIIT.
What is HIIT, and is it a good replacement for LISS?
What is HIIT?
HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training. It involves you doing short bursts of vigorous exercise for anywhere between 5-30 seconds.
After this explosive bout of exercise, you rest for the same amount of time that you exercised for or longer.
Rest periods
1:1 rest/work ratio
- If you rest for the same amount of time as you exercise, this is known as a 1:1 rest-to-work ratio.
- An example of this would be 15 seconds of exercise followed by 15 seconds of rest.
1:2 rest/work ratio
- If you rest for double the time you exercised, this is known as a 1:2 work-rest ratio.
- An example would be 15 seconds of exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest.
Ideal work-to-rest ratios
- HIIT training rest/work ratios can be as high as 1:4 (15 seconds exercise with 60 seconds rest).
- The ratio you choose will depend on your fitness level.
- If you are fit, you will choose a 1:1 ratio (30 seconds of exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest)
- If you are super fit, you may try a 1:1/2 ratio, which would be 30 seconds of exercise followed by 15 seconds of rest.
Intensity
- For HIIT workouts to be classed as high intensity, you must be achieving a minimum of 95% of your maximum heart rate.
- This is the same type of feeling you would feel in your chest if you were running for your life!
Benefits of Interval Training
Hormone release:
HIIT workouts stimulate the release of an important fat-loss hormone known as growth hormone.
You will be using type 2 muscle fibres, which are the same muscle fibres that Dinah Asher-Smith uses when she runs 200 meters.
For example, an HIIT exercise routine to lose weight see here
Creating a Balanced Routine
A well-rounded exercise routine to lose weight is essential for weight loss and overall health. It includes a combination of cardio, strength training, and flexibility exercises.
By incorporating all three components into your routine, you create a comprehensive plan that targets all aspects of fitness.
Proper Form and Technique
When executing exercises with improper form, you not only risk hurting yourself but also compromise the effectiveness of the workout.
To ensure proper form, start by educating yourself about the correct technique for each exercise.
Consult reputable fitness resources, watch instructional videos, or hire a certified personal trainer for guidance.
Implementing Weight Training
The Importance of Strength Training
Strength training is an essential component of any effective exercise routine to lose weight.
By incorporating strength training into your routine, you can turn your body into a fat-burning machine.
An easy way to understand this is to think of a car. Let’s say you have a Ford Fiesta, and the engine has a 2-litre engine, and for every 100 miles you drive, it uses 30 litres of petrol.
If you double the engine size of your Ford Fiesta to 4 litres, it will now burn 60 litres of petrol for the same distance of 100 miles.
Your body is like this car in the sense that if you increase your muscle mass, you will burn more calories.
Selecting Strength Training Exercises
When it comes to selecting strength exercises for your exercise routine to lose weight, there are a variety of options to choose from.
Bodyweight exercises are an excellent starting point as they require little to no equipment and can be performed anywhere.
Some examples of exercises that do not require equipment and engage multiple muscle groups are:
- push-ups
- lunges
- squats
- planks
If you prefer using equipment, free weights such as dumbbells and barbells provide an excellent way to increase resistance and challenge your muscles further.
Designing Your Workout Plan
As a fitness trainer we learned the acronym FITT (frequency, intensity, time and type) to learn how to design an exercise program, and now I am passing that knowledge on to you.
Frequency – How many days a week will you workout.
Intensity – How hard will your workout be, and how difficult will the exercise be
Time – How long will your workouts be
Type – What type of exercise will you do, e.g running, cycling, body weight, cardio and strength training.
Aim for at least three times per week of exercise every week.
First of all, work out how much time you have to work out and aim for a 50/50 split between cardiovascular training and weight/strength training.
For instance, if you have 1 hour, use the following template as a guideline for your exercise routine to lose weight 50/50 split:
- Warm-up – 10 minutes
- Strength training – 20 minutes
- Cardio training – 20 minutes
- Cool down – 10 minutes
I have already covered how to do cardio training, so I will walk you through how to do the warm-up, a strength training routine and cardio training.
I will also give you some exercise routines to help you lose weight for home workouts for you to follow or to use as an example if you want to build your own.
How to Do a Warm Up?
Start with some light cardio for 5-10 minutes. Additionally, incorporate dynamic stretches that focus on your major muscle groups.
Strength training/weight training
For your strength training routine, there are five things that you will need to know in order to put together your own routine. They are
- How many reps you will need to do
- How intense the exercise should be
- How many sets do you need to do
- How long you will need to rest between sets.
- Number of exercises to do per workout
I will go through each one and give a simple breakdown.
Repetitions
Maximum strength
The amount of repetitions is an important variable as it determines the type of result you will get.
If you want to replicate the results of the world’s strongest man and lift a car, or you want to be a sprinter like Usain Bolt, the repetition range will be 1-6.
Muscle Building
If you want to build muscle, the repetition range tends to be between 8-15 repetitions. This is the range that bodybuilders and most people in the gym use.
Defining and improving muscle tone
The repetition range for getting a defined body is 15 repetitions and above.
This is the type of repetition range that you are likely to start off with as a beginner.
Intensity
It is worth noting that with each repetition range, I have mentioned that if you are able to do more repetitions than allocated, your intensity is too low.
If you are assigned to do 10 repetitions of press-ups, but you are easily able to do 30 repetitions, then it’s too easy.
However, using the above example of being assigned to do 10 repetitions of press-ups, let’s say you could do a maximum of 12 repetitions; then the intensity is correct for you.
The correct intensity for you as a beginner will be 15 repetitions and above.
Rest
After each set you do, it’s important to rest. The duration of your rest will be determined by the intensity. The less intense, the shorter the rest, for instance:
Maximum strength – 3 to 7 minutes
Muscle building – 1 to 2 minute
Defining and improving muscle tone – 15 to 30 seconds
15-30 seconds will probably be what you are aiming for as a beginner.
Sets
Sets are important because they determine how much work you do in a session. If you were doing revision for a test and you read one book, and you read that book once.
That wouldn’t be as thorough as reading the same book two or three times.
You can think of Sets in a similar way. The more sets you can fit into your session, the more thoroughly you have trained your body.
As a beginner, aim for 8-sets in your first 2 weeks. When you are more experienced, 20 sets in an hour workout would be the upper end.
When designing your exercise routine to lose weight, finding the right number of sets is crucial to maintaining a balance between challenge and progress.
As a beginner, start with two to three sets per exercise and gradually increase to four or five as you become more comfortable.
Number of exercises to include in your workout
As a beginner, your first exercise routine may have only 4 or 5 exercises. Still, as you progress, you will be doing 8-10 weight training or bodyweight exercises.
How do you progress intensity?
It is essential to incorporate the principles of progressive overload.
This means gradually increasing the difficulty of your exercises by adding weight, repetitions, or intensity.
Workout Routine To Lose Weight
Look at some of these workouts for an example of how to combine strength training and cardio. Try to do this workout 3 times per week.
Week 1-4 Week 5-8 Week 9-12
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Conclusion
Crafting an effective exercise routine to lose weight is a journey that requires dedication, patience, and a touch of creativity.
Remember to be realistic about the time you can allocate, when deciding the duration and frequency of of workouts to make sure your goal is attainable.
Deciding on the types of exercise to include in your routine will depend on your current fitness level, technical ability and personal preference, While your progress will be determined by choosing the right intensity.
Feel free to use the 12 week workout routine as either a template or your own workout routine that you can use.
Good luck with your training.