How to Design a Workout Routine

There is a lot to consider when designing a well rounded workout routine. This article will address the length of the workout, your intensity, how often you will work out, and what types of exercises you will include in it.nnThe first step to designing your routine is determining your goals. Is the workout strictly for building muscle or will you be doing any cardio as well? If you are, I have found that finishing your workouts with cardio is better than starting with it. This allows you to use the most of your energy for building muscle. If your goal is to build muscle then make sure you start with weight training and not cardio.nnThe next step is to determine how often you will be working out. It is recommended to only train your muscles between 3-5 days a week. This is to ensure that there is enough recovery time for your muscles to grow. If you over train your body you may not see the growth you were hoping. I like to work out during the week so I switch between a 5-day split and a 3-day split throughout the year.nnFor the purpose of this article I will show you a very common 5-day split. The 5 day split consists of training each muscle group of your body individually. The split would be broken up like so:nn * Monday - Chestn * Tuesday - Backn * Wednesday - Legsn * Thursday - Shouldersn * Friday - ArmsnnTraining your muscles individually allows you to designate all of your energy to one muscle a day. This means that if you're training chest first you wouldn't have to save energy to train your triceps like some 3-day routines would require of you. Second, this 5 day split is great because it allows enough time for each muscle to recover. Your muscles require between 24-48 hours of rest to completely recover from a workout. If you want to mix in cardio with your weight training just make sure you do it after your workout. The 3-day splits are also nice because they allow you to weight train 3 days a week with 2 cardio days in between while you are recovering.nnIf you decide to change the muscle groups around make sure that you split up muscles that overlap. For example, you wouldn't want to do chest on Monday and shoulders on Tuesday because you would still be sore on Tuesday. You want to give your muscles a good recovery time to make sure they grow to their fullest potential.nnThere are many variations of weight training routines but this article just covers the basics. To find more weight training routines check out the Bodybuilding Routines page of my website!