Ready To Build Workouts That Help You Train Smarter To Get Better And Faster Results?
It's not just about reps or sets or stringing together hard moves...
Most of us have specific fitness goals we want to achieve, BUT we also sometimes have a desire for our workouts to feel "hard."

But "hard" doesn't guarantee results.

Actually you can train incredibly hard and not make any progress whatsoever.

So when we design workouts we have to give ourselves and our clients what we want, but also what we truly NEED.

That means we can't just focus on designing harder workouts. We've got to focus on our specific goals, fitness level and needs to train SMARTER and get results FASTER.

That means we can't just string together random moves and just assign a random number of reps and sets based on what seems hard. Or what we think will make us sore.

NOPE!

We've got to consider all of the different training variables that go into designing workouts and use those variables to make sure the workouts we design are focused not only on our goals, but also our current fitness level and needs!

First, let's go over why designing with you or your client's goal in mind is so key as well as the 3 tips that have helped me design workouts that work so my clients can get better results FASTER!
Who Is The Workout Designed For And What Is Their Goals?
It may seem obvious statement to say that when you design workouts you need to design them with your client in mind (whether that "client" is you or someone you are training).

The problem is...All too often everything we implement does NOT have a purpose based on our clients needs and goals. 

Moves are used because they are hard. Or because we love the deadlift and have heard it is a move everyone should do.

But hard workouts with "great" moves don't guarantee results.
Yes, we need to challenge our clients if they are going to get results, but "challenge" can mean so many different things and you need to make sure that you are challenging them in ways that drive them forward.

When you design workouts, you need to first ask yourself, "Where is my client at and where do they want to go?"

The workouts you design are a MAP. 

A map to get them from where they are starting to their goal.

You want to plan out their entire trip so you they don't take any unnecessary detours and can reach their goals quickly and efficiently. 
That means making sure that everything programmed in has a PURPOSE and that purpose relates specifically to them and their goals!

And you don't want to just think about programming for each workout, but also for the overall progression.

That means not just stringing together random workouts based on what you feel like having them do that day, but about scheduling out workouts so you can TRACK and incrementally increase - whether it's adding weights or reps or adjusting rest and exercise variations. 

Workouts need to be schedule to complement each other and build upon what you're doing. If you're randomly doing different things every workout, every week, you won't know what is working or even understand why some weeks things seem to improve while other weeks you feel like you're going backward! 

So the first step in designing workouts that really WORK is to understand where your client is currently, where they want to go and their other fitness needs that may influence what moves and training variables may be used to help them reach their goals FASTEST.

Otherwise they'll just end up feeling like their running in a hamster wheel training hard without going anywhere!

Now how to you figure out how to create workouts that will actually work based on your client? 
3 Tips To Help You Design Workouts That Actually WORK
#1: Start With The Schedule First
Our clients only have a certain amount of time they can REALISTICALLY spend working out. 

They may want to go to the gym 6 times a week, but realistically can only make it 3 times.

You want to plan out workouts around the time they truly have to spend working out.

Because when you consider what workout design to use, how much volume to create, what muscles to work, what moves to include, you want to know the training frequency and duration, aka the TIME, you have to work with.
If someone only has 30 minutes, 3 days a week to workout, more isolation exercises, heavy lifts with tons of rest between rounds and one body part worked per workout, won't be ideal. It won't utilizing the time they have effectively. 

While that workout may work for their fitness level and even their goals IF they had 1 hour, 5 times a week to workout, it doesn't fit with what their schedule actually is.

That is why considering schedule is so important!

How you go about reaching the same goal may differ based on the training frequency and duration you or your client is able to commit to!

So if you had that same schedule, 30 minutes, 3 times a week, instead of doing isolation exercises and working one body part each workout with a workout design that required lots of rest, you could instead focus on compound and hybrid moves, to work more muscle groups in less time, and target numerous large muscles during each session with a training designs that require less rest.

When you know the time you have to workout, you can design everything in your workout to maximize your time so you can reach your goals faster. 

If you can't workout as frequently, you need to find a way to train more muscle groups in less time. Compound and hybrid moves are a great way to do this!

If your workouts need to be short, you need to find ways to decrease rest. Pairing together moves that work different areas or hemispheres of the body can allow you to rest a muscle while something else is working so you can pack more in to less time. Even using descending rep schemes can help you still use heavy weights while eliminating rest.

The key is to really consider the time you have when designing your plan!
#2: Think Outside Of Just Adding Weight
When we think about getting stronger, about progressing our workouts, about making something harder, often we think, "Add weight!"

And don't get me wrong, I think increasing the weight you can lift is not only important BUT it also feels SO FREAKING GOOD sometimes!

But adding weight is just ONE way we can challenge our bodies to get results!

And it can be very limiting as there are other, sometimes even BETTER, ways to get results depending on our goals. Plus, if we only care about the weight we lift and don't see progress in that one way we can get discouraged.
When we design our workouts, we want to consider other ways we can challenge our body such as:
 - Different tempos
 - Different types of equipment
 - How we load the move down
 - Creating more instability
 - Increasing volume
 - Shortening rest...to name a few!

Using these other options, sometimes even while we increase our weights, can help us get results more efficiently. 

And they can also be ways to challenge ourselves if we DON'T have access to weights or we are limited in the weights we do have.

Plus, we often forget that not EVERY goal is best accomplished by adding weights. 

While adding weight may challenge our body, we want to make sure the CHALLENGE relates back to our goals. 

Say for instance you want to improve your running. 

Getting stronger will help. BUT instead of just focusing solely on the weight you lift, you may actually want to challenge yourself by using unilateral moves instead of bilateral moves or by increasing volume to build your strength endurance. Maybe even to help build core stability you change down how you load the move from holding dumbbells down by your sides during a lunge to a single kettlebell racked on one side.

The key is to make the way you challenge your body fit how you want to progress!
#3: Use Rest To Your Advantage
When we think about making a workout harder, we often jump right to cutting out the rest from our workouts. 

Less rest, more work is better, right?!

WRONG!

Less rest isn't always "better." And not all "rest" is exactly the same.

Rest is important, whether it is the rest we include during our workouts or the rest days we give ourselves in our schedules.

Rest is when our body rebuilds to grow stronger and fitter. And rest in our workouts is when we recover so we can work at 100% the next round.

When we eliminate rest during our workouts, we have to understand that our intensity will dip, which isn't a bad thing necessarily.
But sometimes our goals REQUIRE us to rest adequately so we can lift as heavy or sprint as fast.

If say you want to increase your speed, you NEED to rest adequately between rounds or your speed will decrease and you'll end up training slowness. 

So while decreasing rest can sometimes be a way to fit more into less time or make something "feel" harder, it isn't always the most effective way to reach your goals and can sometimes even work against you.

Plus, rest intervals don't always have to mean just sitting around. Sometimes you can use Active Rest, and do light activity that helps you bring your heart rate down but keeps you moving. You can also use rest periods to work on your mobility or focus on a little activation for muscles that you struggle to get working.

You can make those rest intervals work for you by changing how you use them - whether you lengthen them so you can work harder and lift heavier each work interval or whether you shorten them to work on work capacity and endurance or whether you make them "active" to work on other elements that will only benefit the rest of your workout.

And remember too, sometimes rest can simply mean you rest your legs as you work your upper body! Even just alternating areas worked can be "rest."

So stop just eliminating rest from your workouts. Less rest isn't always better! Make your rest intervals work for you!
STOP Just Thinking About Workouts As Reps And Sets!
If you notice none of those 3 tips to help you create more effective workouts mention reps and sets.

Because all too often we only think of workouts as assigning reps and sets to moves and we do so slightly arbitrarily based on how we may feel or what seems hard. That is part of the reason why we may end up with hard but ineffective workouts.

Not only are reps and sets just TWO of the training variables you can adjust to get results from your workouts, but often the reps and sets you will want to use should be dependent on how you program in the other training variables as well.
Reps and sets don't stand alone!

So what other basic training variables should you consider when designing more effective workouts?
 - Intensity
 - Volume
 - Weights or Loads
 - Rest
 - Tempos
 - Exercises
 - Intervals
 - Training Duration
 - Training Frequency

Your reps and sets not only affect these other variables, but are influenced by these other variables in return.

And the bottom line is...all of these variables need to be adjusted based on YOU and YOUR GOALS.

But your intensity, your weights, the exercises you use can all affect the number of reps and sets you perform. Or the reps and sets you decide to perform may then change all of these things.

The key is to make sure that all of these variables are adjusted in a way to help you reach your goals.

For instance, a beginner may start with a lower intensity and lower volume as they allow not only their muscles to strengthen but also their connective tissues to adapt. They will use lighter loads, compound moves, maybe slower tempos to control movements, more rest, and more reps but fewer sets. 

As this beginner progressed, you could increase loads, which then may force you to decrease reps while increasing rest. (See how changes to one variable affect changes in another!?) 

You could also increase overall volume, upping the number of sets without adding more load as your body will be challenged by in the increased number of reps done overall instead of the load. The tempo you choose to use for movements may also influence how many reps and sets. Slowing down the tempo may force you to do fewer reps than if you went more quickly through the move!

Or if you want to work on power and make moves explosive, that may also force you to decrease the number of reps.

While your goals drive everything, you want all your training variables to be working FOR you!
Ready To Start Designing Workouts That Will Help You Train Smarter?
Join My Dynamic Workout Design Training Black Book!
I will tell you right here and now, there is more than one way to design a workout that works!

But the more you know about the basics and how to manipulate those training variables, the better you can adjust each to meet your specific needs.

The more techniques and workout designs you understand, the better you can combine things for results, changing techniques if you aren't seeing the progress you want...even implementing little adjustments to help you past plateaus.

And that is why I created my Training Black Book.

I wanted to explain not only how to adjust all the different training variables to meet your needs and goals, but also go over different workout designs and training techniques that can help you take your programming to the next level!
In the course I break down the different techniques so you know how and when to use them to achieve the best results possible. And not only do I go over all of the techniques, but I provide you with over 50 done for you workout options you can print and use or even add your own logo to so you can use them with clients as well!

And I also go over how to pick the "right" exercises for your goals so you aren't just challenging yourself with weights but using a variety of techniques to get results and target moves to your specific needs. It's all well and good that there are moves we think are killer or amazing, but even those moves may need to be adjusted to match our specific goals!

So if you're ready to design workouts that work so you can train smarter instead of just harder, join my Training Black Book!
What You'll Get With My Training Black Book...
In this program, I break down how to manipulate those basic training variables such as reps, sets, volume, tempo, and rest to create workouts that WORK.

I answer that question I know you still want the answer to of...

"How many reps?"

"How many sets?"

"What intervals should I use?"

And explain how to design everything based on YOUR goals.
But you won't only learn about those basic training variables but also about EXERCISE SELECTION.

Why you need to consider things like:

 - Exercise order
 - Planes of motion
 - Bilateral vs unilateral movements
 - And not only how much weight to use, but also the type and placement!

And if you've ever wondered if you can really build muscle and strength with just bodyweight training...

The answer is YES and I'll show you how!

I'll also provide you with different training techniques to help you get the results you're looking for with creative and fun programming. From traditional Circuit Training to Density Sets, Pyramids, and Rest-Pause technique, I provide you with the tools you need to create fun and EFFECTIVE workouts.

To help you get started, I also provide over 50 done-for-you workout templates to download and use, whether you're designing a program for yourself or for your clients.

With each workout, I break down the design and how you can even change up the set up to fit your specific needs, whether you're designing workouts for your group training sessions or just trying to help yourself get over a plateau.

Over 10 hours of content including videos, articles and workout templates! Everything you need to be able to train smarter!

So if you're ready to design workouts that work, join the Dynamic Workout Design Training Black Book! 

P.S. TRAINERS!! Get continuing education credits by completing the course and taking the quizzes!
Join The Dynamic Workout Design Training Black Book
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