Effective Fitness Programming in 8 Steps

The Importance of Fitness Programming

Programming is essential for creating effective workout plans that account for clients’ training goals, schedules, fitness history, workout preferences, and available fitness equipment. When done right, it makes for more efficient training, allowing clients to reach their goals more quickly, avoid plateaus, and have more fun.

Step 1: Learn More About Your Client

Having an initial consultation (we’ve written more about this here) is vital for personal trainers to understand prospective clients better and determine if they would be a good fit to work together. 

The purpose isn’t just to understand their goals (more on that next) but also to learn about their lifestyle: nutrition, exercise habits, stress levels, and sleep.

Knowing these details about the prospective client can help you create a training program that fits into their life and helps them get closer to their goals without aggravating old injuries. 

If you’re a personal trainer, sit down with the person and have a conversation. Try to build some initial rapport while discussing their goals, fitness history, previous coaching experiences, and roadblocks keeping them from being successful. Online coaches should do the same thing but on a video call.

Things to ask about include (you can have them fill out a questionnaire):

• What type of work they do
• What a typical day looks like
• What they eat in a day
• If they have food intolerances or allergies
• What is their exercise history is
• Whether they follow a structured program now

Check out our article on personal trainer questionnaires for an extensive list of potential questions.

Additionally, if the prospective client passes the initial screening and you decide to work with them, it’s important to perform a personal training assessment, where you record a few things:

• Height and weight
• Body fat percentage
• Circumference measures (chest, arms, waist, hips, and thighs)
• Posture
• Overall mobility (done through a functional movement screen)
• Cardiovascular fitness
• Strength and muscle endurance (done through exercise testing)

Step 2: Set Goals

As a coach or trainer, the next step to creating an effective training program is understanding where your client comes from and what they want to achieve.

The client may want to build muscle, get stronger, or lose weight. They may have more than one goal (that’s typically the case), or they may not be sure where to start or what objectives to focus on.

Sometimes, clients have unrealistic goals, and your job is to set the right expectations to avoid frustration when results don’t come as quickly as expected. 

For instance, if a client wants to lose 20 pounds in one month or achieve one of those celebrity transformations, your job is to tell them that results don’t come that quickly. Sure, getting clients motivated is essential, and you may set somewhat ambitious goals, but keep things realistic.

You may lose some people right then, which can be frustrating. However, this is far better in the long run, as it limits the coaching you do for unreasonable and impatient clients who often ask for a refund and may even go around telling everyone that you’re not a good trainer.

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Regardless of where your client comes from or how experienced they are, it’s vital to help them set S.M.A.R.T. goals:

• S – specific
• M – measurable
• A – achievable
• R – relevant
• T – time-bound

An example of such a goal would be:

“Lose 20 pounds of body fat in the next 16 weeks.”

The objective is specific, measurable (you can track your client’s progress weekly), achievable (though a bit ambitious), and time-bound (they know when the deadline is). So long as the client is overweight and looking to lean down, the goal would also be relevant. 

Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for muscle growth is generally more difficult because building muscle takes far longer than losing fat. A better approach is to focus on performance. For instance:

“Bench press 60 kg for 4 sets of 8 reps in 20 weeks.” 

This might be a more relevant goal as it’s far easier to track. You can monitor your client’s technique and RPE, and we know that progressively lifting more weight is good for muscle growth.

Therefore, while it may not directly measure muscle growth, getting our client from, say, a 40 to a 60-kilo bench for reps will grow their chest, shoulders, and triceps.

Step 3: Choose a Training Split

Once you better understand who the client is, where they come from, and what goals they want to achieve, it’s time to get creative and put together their exercise program. 

First, we must choose a training split, which is essentially the skeleton of fitness programs. It dictates how often the client works out and how their training is organized. Some factors to consider include:

• Experience level – A beginner may do well with two or three full-body workouts, whereas someone advanced may need to work out five or six times weekly to create the necessary stimulus.
  
• Their schedule – aside from their experience, consider how many days the client can realistically dedicate to training and how long their workouts can be.
  
  Some can commit to three long (90+ minute) workouts, whereas others may only be able to spare 45-60 minutes five times weekly. Your job is putting together the best program the client can commit to.
  
• Primary goal – Someone interested in muscle growth can do well on most splits, including upper/lower and push/pull/legs.
  
  However, those primarily interested in building strength may need a more specialized approach, such as a power/hypertrophy upper/lower (PHUL) split or a hybrid approach that allows them to do the core lifts and close variations two to three times per week.
  
• Preferences – some clients prefer full-body training, whereas others are partial to splits, where each workout focuses on a specific area (e.g., the back) or exercise (e.g., the deadlift). While the client’s preference should not be a top priority, it’s still something to consider, as it can affect their overall satisfaction, motivation, and consistency.

Here are some basic recommendations based on experience level:

• For beginners – two or three full-body workouts or a three-day push/pull/legs split is generally a good start
  
• For intermediates – three full-body workouts, a three or six-day push/pull/legs split, or a four-day upper/lower split
  
• For advanced trainees – four or five-day full-body, six-day push/pull/legs, or four or six-day upper/lower or PHUL

Regardless of your approach, keep their overall training volume in mind, and don’t prescribe too much right from the start. 

Their per-session volume should be lower on a high-frequency split and higher on two or three-day workout routines. That way, clients can do enough to see results but not too much that it feels unsustainable.

Example Of How It Might Look

Let’s go over a quick example for an intermediate-level lifter. I recommend starting with ten sets for the larger muscle groups (the chest, back, and quadriceps) and six to eight sets for the smaller muscles: biceps, triceps, shoulders, hamstrings, and calves. 

Our client can work out four days per week and is primarily interested in building muscle, so we’ll put them on a four-day upper/lower split. (We’ll dive into exercise specifics in the next point.)

Workout 1 – Upper A

• 5 sets for the back
• 5 sets of the chest
• 3 sets for the biceps
• 3 sets for the triceps
• 3 sets for the shoulders

Workout 2 – Lower A

• 5 sets for the quadriceps
• 3 sets for the hamstrings
• 3 sets for the calves

Workout 3 – Upper B

• 5 sets for the back
• 5 sets of the chest
• 3 sets for the biceps
• 3 sets for the triceps
• 3 sets for the shoulders

Workout 4 – Lower B

• 5 sets for the quadriceps
• 3 sets for the hamstrings
• 3 sets for the calves

Our personal training platform, Hevy Coach, allows you to assemble workouts in minutes, see how each looks, and assign routines to clients. 

We’ve even included 13 training programs you can use (or take inspiration from) to coach trainees of all levels based on goals, even if they work out at home. You can find the programs under Program Library > HevyCoach Library.

Step 4: Choose the Exercises

The next step is to split the weekly training sets for each muscle group across two or more exercises. Let’s use the same four-day upper/lower split as an example again. The volume for the first workout of the week looked like this:

• 5 sets for the back
• 5 sets of the chest
• 3 sets for the biceps
• 3 sets for the triceps
• 3 sets for the shoulders

So, let’s put together a workout based on that:

• Bent Over Row (Barbell) – 5 sets
• Bench Press (Barbell) – 5 sets
• Shoulder Press (Dumbbell) – 3 sets
• Bicep Curl (Dumbbell) – 3 sets
• Tricep Extension (Machine) – 3 sets

I recommend putting together several workout templates to use when creating training programs. You can use them as the foundation instead of creating routines from scratch to save time.

A Note On Redundant Exercises

Picking almost any two, three, or four exercises for a specific muscle group and doing them with proper form and enough effort will bring results. 

Be mindful when selecting exercises to create a more varied training program that provides a good stimulus and leads to more balanced growth. 

For example, rather than doing a flat barbell and dumbbell bench press, do one flat and one incline press to target the middle and upper portion of the chest more evenly. 

Similarly, perform a horizontal (e.g., bent over barbell row) and vertical (e.g., lat pulldown) pull to target the back from different angles and more evenly work the lats, rhomboids, trapezius, erector spinae, and other muscles in the area.

One way to reduce the risk of redundant exercises in any training program is to prescribe them based on movement patterns:

• Horizontal pull – Bent Over Row (Barbell), Dumbbell Row, T Bar Row, Seated Cable Row, and Inverted Row
• Vertical pull – Pull Up, Chin Up, and Lat Pulldown
• Horizontal push – Bench Press (and variations), Push Up, Chest Dip, Chest Press (Machine), and Chest Fly (and variations)
• Vertical push – Overhead Press (and variations), Push Press, Arnold Press, Landmine Press, Shoulder Press (Machine), and Handstand Push Up
• Squat – Squat (Barbell), Box Squat (Barbell), Front Squat, Goblet Squat, Bulgarian Split Squat, Hack Squat (Machine), and Lunge (and variations)
• Hip hinge – Deadlift (Barbell), Romanian Deadlift, Hip Thrust, Cable Pull Through, Glute Bridge, and Good Morning (Barbell)

Depending on the client’s fitness level and the volume you want them to do, you may include one or multiple exercises per movement pattern. For example, an advanced lifter doing a pull workout twice a week can have a day where they focus on vertical pulling and one where they do horizontal pulls.

You don’t need to use the same approach for isolation lifts, but variation there can also be highly beneficial, especially for clients looking to optimize muscle growth and symmetry. Here are a few quick tips:

• Biceps – a curl variation with a narrow grip and another one with a wider grip; you can also include a reverse-grip curl one with the wrists neutral (Hammer Curl)
  
• Triceps – a tricep extension with the arms to the sides (e.g., Triceps Rope Pushdown) and one with the arms overhead (e.g., Overhead Tricep Extension)
  
• Shoulders – a lateral raise to target the middle deltoids and a face pull or reverse fly to work the rear delts; front raises are generally unnecessary for most trainees, as they do plenty of push exercises that train the front deltoids
  
• Hamstrings – a knee flexion movement (e.g., Lying Leg Curl) and a hip hinge (e.g., Romanian Deadlift)
  
• Calves – one standing and one seated calf raise variation

Step 5: Prescribe the Working Weights

For most clients, a balanced strength training approach is ideal. Their workout routine should include light, moderate, and heavy sets to build strength and muscle and improve muscular endurance.

Even if your client doesn’t have a specific goal beyond building muscle, having light as well as heavy sets will still help them. 

Mechanical tension and metabolic stress are the two primary factors for muscle gain. Heavy sets promote mechanical tension and help trainees build strength, which allows them to use more weight across all exercises, leading to a stronger growth stimulus.

Similarly, high-rep sets with lighter weights promote metabolic stress, which stimulates growth and might improve cardiovascular endurance. 

Another benefit of a varied training approach is that workouts become more engaging, making trainees more likely to train hard and look forward to each upcoming session.

Plus, by doing multiple exercises in various rep ranges, trainees avoid placing too much of the same stress on their joints and connective tissues, which can otherwise lead to nagging aches and overuse injuries. 

For the most part, you can follow these rules when prescribing loads or rep targets:

• Compound exercises (e.g., bench press) – 5 to 8 reps
• Assistance exercises (e.g., machine chest press) – 10 to 15 reps
• Isolation exercises (e.g., chest fly) – 15 to 25 reps

Data suggests that even lighter weights (as high as 40+ reps per set) can lead to muscle gain, so long as trainees push close enough to failure. 

However, we don’t recommend doing that many reps simply because they may generate too much fatigue before the trainee gets to the truly ‘effective’ reps near the end of the set.

If the goal is to improve muscle endurance and generate metabolic stress, sets of 25-30 reps are enough.

The same applies to bodyweight exercises. For example, if one of your clients enjoys doing push-ups and is good (being able to do a set of 40+ at a time), find ways to make the movement more challenging to reduce the rep target.

Instead of doing countless reps of regular push-ups, they could do plyometric, decline, or weighted push-ups. That way, they still get to do their favorite movement and cause the necessary stimulus with fewer reps.

If some clients don’t feel comfortable doing heavy sets of 5 to 8 reps or simply don’t want to go that heavy, you can prescribe loads that allow them to do around 10-12 reps per set. This is still beneficial for strength gain, but it feels less intimidating.

A Brief Note for Some Compound Lifts

It’s better to do certain compound lifts with more or less weight. For example, the bent-over barbell row is a movement you should generally prescribe for more reps (8+) because the risk of technique breakdown with heavier weight is higher.

Trainees shorten the range of motion, become more upright, and turn the row into a shrug. Advanced trainees may have the skill and discipline to do heavy rows with proper form, but monitoring their technique is still a good idea.

The overhead press is another movement to be careful with. Since trainees must press a heavy weight overhead, this is another exercise where lifting slightly less weight for more reps is generally better. 

Aside from the risk of dropping the weight, trainees doing heavy sets are prone to excessive back arching and leaning back, which can place more stress on the spine and lead to instability.

In contrast to these, I typically recommend doing no more than 8 reps on most deadlift variations because the risk of technique breakdown increases as trainees do 10-15+ reps at a time. 

By doing 3 to 8 heavy and controlled reps, trainees can generate mechanical tension and promote strength gains early in their session before moving on to accessory exercises for more reps. 

As PhD and weightlifting coach Sergii Putsov notes:

“It would be best if you also considered the effect of fatigue, as tiredness while training can lead to your lifting technique becoming compromised, and with poor form comes an increased risk of injury.”

Example

Let’s now take the above upper-body workout and add rep targets: 

• Bent Over Row (Barbell) – 5 sets, 8-10 reps
• Bench Press (Barbell) – 5 sets, 8-10 reps
• Shoulder Press (Dumbbell) – 3 sets, 10-12 reps
• Bicep Curl (Dumbbell) – 3 sets, 15-20 reps
• Tricep Extension (Machine) – 3 sets, 15-20 reps

Step 6: Recommend the Appropriate Rest Periods

Taking enough time to recover between sets is crucial for trainees to feel well and perform at their best. In contrast, rushing through rest periods often comes at a cost: completing fewer reps and getting too winded.

Since training volume, the amount of work we do at the gym, is a crucial factor for growth and strength gain, allowing enough time to recover well and maintain our performance from set to set makes sense.

If a trainee sees a significant drop in their performance from set to set (e.g., 12 ⇒ 7 ⇒ 4 reps), one of two things is likely happening:

• They are training too hard, likely to failure
• They are not recovering long enough to feel rested and ready for the next set

As a coach, your job is to provide guidelines for rest periods while giving your clients the freedom to determine what’s best. The reason is that daily readiness (how one feels from one workout to the next) fluctuates.

For example, a client might walk in the gym on Monday, feeling fresh and rested from the weekend. As a result, they crush the workout and set a couple of rep PRs, even with shorter rest periods between sets.

However, they may not feel as rested and energetic as Friday rolls around because they’ve had a few days of work and stress. As such, the trainee may not feel great and might need to rest a bit longer between sets to have a productive session.

As a rule of thumb, trainees should take shorter breaks when doing higher-rep sets and longer breaks when lifting heavy. For example:

• 3-6 reps = up to five minutes of rest
• 6-10 reps = two to three minutes of rest
• 10-15 reps = 1.5 to two minutes of rest
• 15+ reps = around 1.5 minutes of rest

Also, training at a higher RPE (closer to failure) is more physically and mentally demanding, so you should adjust rest periods appropriately. For example, if a client has a schedule AMRAP (as many reps as possible) set, give them more time to recover and catch their breath.

Finally, keep in mind that specific compound exercises are simply more fatiguing. Pull-ups have always been difficult to recover from, and I find that shorter breaks (up to two minutes) cause my set-to-set performance to plummet. 

My total reps might drop as much as 35-50 percent from set to set, so I typically rest longer when doing that specific movement.

Another example is the hip thrust, where trainees often reach 300, 400, or even 500+ lbs. The movement pattern is relatively simple, but moving that much weight for multiple reps poses a challenge, so it’s best to give trainees more time to recover.

Example of How It Might Look

Now that we’ve gone over this information, let’s take an example workout and see what rest periods we might prescribe:

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest Period (mins)
Bench Press (Barbell)	4	5-8	3-5
Incline Bench Press (Dumbbell)	3	8-10	2-3
Bent Over Row (Barbell)	4	8-10	2-3
Lat Pulldown (Cable)	3	8-10	2-3
Overhead Press (Barbell)	3	8-10	2-3
Bicep Curl (Barbell)	3	10-12	1.5-2
Skullcrusher (Barbell)	3	10-12	1.5-2

This is a workout from our Hevy Coach Library (Upper A Strength), so the rep targets are lower even on isolation lifts, such as the bicep curl. Sign up today and gain instant access to this and 12 other templates.

Step 7: Consider the Element of Progression

Effective fitness training is about doing more work and forcing the body to adapt to greater training stressors. A workout routine might work well at the start, but it will cease to be effective once the trainee adapts to that level of challenge.

The Principle of Overload

The principle of overload states that for positive adaptations to occur (e.g., muscle and strength gain), we must overcome increasingly greater physical stressors in our training.

If a client is lifting 135 lbs on the bench press for 4 sets of 8 reps now, they should ideally lift more weight for the same reps or the same weight for more reps later. Your job as a trainer or coach is to make that happen. 

Other ways to create overload include:

• Training through a longer range of motion
• Doing the same weight/reps but with a pause at the top (or bottom, depending on the movement)
• Doing the same workout but in less time
• Maintaining performance while losing body fat
• Lifting the same weight with greater speed and explosiveness
• Doing more sets with the same weight and for the same number of reps

A Common Misconception About Overload

Certified personal trainers and coaches sometimes struggle to understand overload, which keeps them from creating the best possible training plans for their clients. 

On the one hand, progressive overload is about pushing hard and doing more work. For example, if a client did 12 reps with 135 lbs last week and has now forced themselves to get 13 reps, that is a form of overload. The trainee worked hard and placed more stress on the target muscles. 

However, this way of looking at overload is not entirely correct and can lead to problems, especially when comparing performance over time. 

For instance, the trainee may have done 13 reps, but what if their tempo wasn’t as controlled, they shortened the range of motion, or they used more momentum to do the last few reps?

If overload solely relies on effort, there is a higher risk that trainees will eventually hit a wall and be forced to grind out reps to see ‘progress,’ only to put themselves at risk of injury or overtraining.

Another thing to consider is that overload is the by-product of previous training efforts. If you’ve worked hard in the past and followed an intelligent progression scheme, your body has adapted to the training stress and can now do more without you necessarily increasing the RPE: lift extra weight, do more reps, or handle more training sets.

The Solution: Use Progression Schemes

A progression scheme is simply a way to outline a training plan with specific goals. You can use numerous options and intensity techniques to get your clients from where they are to where they want to be.

The simplest and most widespread strategy is linear progression. One option is to set rep targets for clients and increase the amount of weight they lift once they reach them. 

For example, let’s say a client currently lifts 135 lbs for 6 reps. You can set a goal for them to do 4 sets of 8 reps. Then, increase the weight by 5 lbs and go again. It could look like this:

Week	Weight	Reps
1	135 lbs	6, 6, 6, 6
2	135 lbs	7, 7, 7, 6
3	135 lbs	8, 8, 8, 8
4	140 lbs	6, 6, 6, 6
5	140 lbs	8, 7, 7, 7
6	140 lbs	8, 8, 8, 9
7	145 lbs	6, 6, 6, 7
8	145 lbs	7, 7, 6, 6
9	145 lbs	8, 8, 8, 7
10	145 lbs	8, 8, 8, 8
11	150 lbs	6, 6, 6, 6

Daily undulating periodization (DUP) is another popular option and is often used to replace linear progression as trainees become more advanced. With it, the objective is to vary the weights, reps, sets, and sometimes even the movements from session to session.

Here’s some info from powerlifter, writer, and coach Greg Nuckols:

“With DUP, rather than changing your volume/intensity/rep ranges every few weeks, you change them every day you train.  That way, your muscles don’t adapt with as much specificity as they otherwise could, decreasing the impact of the repeated bout effect, allowing responsiveness to training to remain higher.”

To structure this, you must create a training plan where the client does the primary lifts (squat, bench, and deadlift) two to three times per week, but with a specific focus. For example:

	Exercise	Sets	Reps	1RM %
Day 1	Power Bench	4	3-5	80
	Strength Deadlift	4	3-5	80
	Hypertrophy Squat	4	8-10	70
Day 2	Strength Bench	4	3-5	80
	Power Squat	4	3-5	80
	Hypertrophy Deadlift	4	6-8	70
Day 3	Hypertrophy Bench	4	8-10	70
	Strength Squat	4	3-5	80
	Power Deadlift	4	3-5	80

Along with progression, it’s generally a good idea to track your client’s RPE (though it is subjective and sometimes misleading) and have them work harder as they get closer to the end of a cycle, just before a planned deload.

For example, the client may start the cycle at a moderate RPE of 6 or 7 and slowly work up to an RPE of 9, 9.5, or even 10 (on certain sets). Then, you may reduce the volume and intensity for a week or two, hopefully causing a degree of super-compensation to occur before starting the next mesocycle.

In our DUP table example, the above may be the first week. By week four or six, the client may work up to 90% of their 1RM on strength sets and 75% on hypertrophy sets while trying to get the same number of reps. That would instantly increase their RPE.

You can use the Hevy Coach personal training platform to create and assign workout programs and easily track client progress through the dashboard.

Step 8: Give Your Client Some Freedom

The last step is more of a lesson for personal training and coaching. As you create training plans for clients, remember you’re dealing with people, not robots. Life emergencies, injuries, the common cold, and other things can affect people’s motivation, consistency, and overall effort.

Because of that, giving some of your clients some freedom to make training decisions may be beneficial. For example, let’s say that one of your clients can only hit the gym at 6 PM after work.

Given that this is typically the busiest time for most gyms, some of the exercise equipment (e.g., lat pulldown machines and gym benches) might be taken with multiple people waiting their turn.

Rather than sticking to that, give the client some freedom to substitute certain exercises and still get their workout done without waiting 15 minutes just so that a certain machine, squat rack, or bench frees up.

Additionally, teach clients to record their RPE and educate them on daily readiness because this can help them become more independent and make better training decisions in the long run.

For instance, if a client feels particularly beat up after a long day at work and is not up for a long and demanding leg session, do another workout or reduce the overall volume and intensity. You can also allow the person to modify their workout by asking, “What changes would you make to this workout?” 

By involving the client, you show that you care and teach them to make training-related decisions on the go. That way, when they eventually stop working with you, they can be more self-sufficient and capable of creating effective and flexible training plans for themselves.

Conclusion

As a certified personal trainer or coach, writing a good workout program can feel intimidating, but here’s the thing:

Learning how to write good programs takes time and experience. It’s entirely normal to feel nervous because you can’t know how a particular client will respond to a fitness program you create for them.

The best you can do is follow the above steps, monitor their progress closely, and be open to making changes when necessary.

Speaking of that, Hevy Coach allows you to make changes to a client’s training plan with a few clicks of the mouse. That way, if a specific exercise doesn’t work for them, the training volume feels too high, or they have another issue with the plan, you adjust the course.