Principles of Program Design
The definition of a principle is a truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system. While a rule is an understood regulation governing conduct. A principle allows for the person to exercise autonomy and creativity, while a rule tends to be much more strict and limiting. For that reason, I prefer to view the following as principles. They serve as the foundation, but do not always need to be followed with exacting detail. A good foundation with the knowledge of how to proceed will serve you much better than a list of hard and fast rules without an understanding of how or why.
That said, here are some principles I follow when constructing a workout.
Performance
We want to emphasis correct execution of repetitions with gradual improvement over time in the 1) quality of execution 2) force/speed/squeeze of the repetition while still using quality and 3) the weight used.
Emphasizing performance, along with proper nutrition, will help you improve strength and build muscle.
General Rep Ranges
I spend most of my time with heavier exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench press) doing 5 to 8 repetitions and most of my time on the other compound movements in the 8 to 12 range. This does not mean that we never go outside those ranges, but science does support those as being the sweet spot for strength and muscle. Occasionally, and usually on isolation exercises, we will go up to 15.
Exercise Choice
For a given workout program, we have probably 20 exercises to choose from for a particular muscle group. I will choose the exercises based on several factors (as outlined in this paper). Your level of experience, preference, equipment available, injuries, etc. Some exercises will pop up more than others. This is due to two main reasons. One, it is a very effective overall movement. Two, more practice will cause more improvement in that movement. Again, squats, deadlifts and bench press all being good examples of exercises that we will do more often.
Heavy before Light
Often times if we do heavier weight/lower repetition work it will be in the beginning of a workout. This is because you are freshest. Once fatigue starts to build up you will not be able to achieve the same heavy weight at the end of a workout that you could at the beginning of a workout. There are several types of fatigue building up. Your muscle is accumulating lactic acid which affects your performance from set to set. You are gradually using up muscle glycogen leaving less fuel for subsequent sets. Your central nervous system is also getting taxed. Finally, you are creating a slight oxygen debt throughout the workout that causes general fatigue (this same debt also causes your metabolism to increase post workout).
Doing heavy work in a fatigued state will decrease performance and reduce safety. This is one of the main reasons I will almost never ask you to perform a superset with a squat or deadlift. They are simply too hard on their own, thus trying to do them while fatigued from a superset will decrease performance too much.
Compound before Isolation
I do exercises that work muscles through multiple joints (compound) earlier in a workout because they naturally offer more bang for your buck than single joint exercises (isolation). Example; squats work hips and knees, where as leg extensions work just knees. Or bench press (shoulders/elbows) versus chest fly (shoulder). This principle somewhat relates to the Heavy vs. Light above. Compound movements lend themselves to heavier weight due to more muscle groups being involved.
I will also tend to work chest and back over triceps and biceps, because as you work chest or back, you are almost always simultaneously working triceps and biceps.
Opposing Supersets
Time is an important factor in the gym. No one wants to be in the gym forever. Therefore, I often use opposing supersets. Meaning two exercises that either 1) work opposing muscles groups so they do not interfere with each other or 2) are different enough that they do not interfere.
If we are working bench press for example, we may choose a row to superset. Bench Press works chest, shoulder and triceps. Rowing works the muscles of the back (traps, rhomboids, lats) and biceps. No interference. The fact that they don’t interfere keeps your performance level high.
Working in Planes of Motion
Working in planes of motion is a way to make sure you are 1) hitting all the muscles of the body and 2) keeping your training balanced. If you just did a “Push” workout, but you realize all of the exercises you chose were in the horizontal plane, then you left out some basic movement patterns.
Basic planes of motion plus examples of each are:
Upper Body
Horizontal pushing – bench press
Vertical upward pushing – shoulder press
Vertical downward pushing – dips
Horizontal pulling – rows
Vertical downward pulling – pull-ups
Vertical upward pulling – face pull (I know this is more horizontal, but strict upward pulling is slightly awkward, face pulls are the best approximation)
Lower Body
Quad dominant movement (more knees) – squats, leg extensions
Glute/Hamstring dominant movement (more hips) – deadlifts, leg curls
Variations can also be done in terms of angle. For example, we often use the Incline DB Bench Press which is in between horizontal and vertical.
Working in planes of motion also helps you set up/choose exercises for the opposing supersets.
Finding Time for Abs
Related to the opposing supersets is finding time for abs. There are several reasons to use abdominal/core exercises as supersets. 1) A strong core helps your performance on all lifts, particularly the heavier ones. Force is always transferred through your body to the ground from the barbell, thus any weak link in the system can cause force to be dissipated. Often this weak link is the core. 2) Core work often will not interfere too much with the exercise you are performing provided it isn’t squats or deadlift. 3) Sometimes it is hard to find an exercise to superset, when that happens, choose abs!
Convenience/Making Adjustments
Related to the final point about Abs, sometimes there are no machines available to superset. Heck, sometimes there are no machines available to even do the FIRST exercise on your list! Use the principles above to make substitutions.
For example, you may have planned to bench press. But maybe all of the bench presses are being used. Think about the principles above, bench press is a compound movement usually done with heavier weight for 5 to 8 reps and it is in the horizontal plane. Substituting for pectoral flys for sets of 15 would not be your first choice. Nor would dumbbell shoulder raises. Machine Chest Press could work, as could Dumbbell Flat Bench Press. However, don’t write off the pectoral flys, if the gym is CRAZY busy, just do what you can. SOME exercise is always better than NO exercise.
One more example, you planned to do squats. But there is no rack available. Good substitutions would be leg press or goblet squats (hooray, you can ALWAYS do goblet squats!). High rep back extensions would not be your first choice to replace the squats. But again, some exercise is better than none, so do what you can.
I hope that was helpful. I plan to spend time elaborating a bit more on each point above in future posts.
Stay tuned!
