A personal training workout can be more beneficial than following a fixed workout schedule. Here are some guidelines to help you design your workout plan and tips to enhance it.
Whenever you design your personal training routines, it is important that you keep in mind what your aim is and what result you want from your workout. For example, if you wish to go for weight loss, then concentrate on cardio exercises which burn calories fast, and concentrate on floor or weight training exercises, which work out on the body areas where you have excess fat. If you wish to just keep in shape, then design a light and fun workout, that just helps to tone-up your body. When you want to build some muscles, then focus on some hard strength training and endurance training exercises. If you are a beginner to workouts, then start slowly with some lightweight exercises and less repetitions, and later on enhance your workout as you get better stamina, by adding more weights to your workout.
What is an Ideal Workout?
An ideal workout should consist of all the 5 components of physical fitness, which are cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and composition. So, in your exercise program make sure you include these 5 components. You should include cardiovascular exercises for your cardio health, which is also a full body workout. Weight training exercises help to strengthen and build your muscles, and for endurance training keep adding more weight to improve your endurance. For flexibility, make sure you follow stretching exercises after your workout. For body composition, calculate your BMI properly and then according to your ideal weight for you height, aim at that weight.
Full Body Measurements
Make a chart in your excel worksheet on your PC or in a book. Note down your current body weight, and note down your other body area measurements with an inch tape. This way you will be able to check, if you have lost weight or gained muscle mass in inches. The body areas where you need to take measurements are typically the neck, chest, waist, hips, biceps, lower arms, wrists, thighs, and calves. Note all these measurements in your chart.
How to Perform a Workout
Your workout should be well-balanced with cardiovascular exercises and weight training exercises for different muscle groups.
Cardiovascular Exercises: Even in your cardiovascular exercises keep changing the workouts to have a good cross-training workout. The cardiovascular exercises can be anything from jogging, running, skipping with a jump rope to boxing, workout on elliptical machine, bicycling, etc. Before you start your cardiovascular exercises, it is very important that you do a warm-up session of around 7 – 10 minutes, which can be mild jogging. This will help to circulate the blood throughout your body and will prevent any muscle soreness. After half an hour of cardiovascular exercises, you should perform strength training exercises.
Strength Training: If you don’t have any expensive fitness equipment for your weight training exercises then do the floor exercises for that muscle group. Here, is a list of the various strength training exercises, which you should include in your workout plan.
- For Shoulder: Overhead press, front raise, and lateral raise
- For Biceps: Hammer curls, bicep curls, and concentration curls
- For Triceps: Tricep extension, dips, and kickbacks
- For Chest: Chest press machine, bench press, and push-ups
- For Abs: Crunches, reverse crunches, oblique twists, and pelvic tilts
- For Back: Back extension, seated row machines, and lat pulldowns
- For Lower Body: Squats, lunges, calf raises, deadlifts, and leg press machine
Make sure you follow a proper posture, stick to light weights and break down 20 repetitions of each exercise into two sets.
Stretching & Cool Down: After you finish your workout, stretch the muscle groups you worked on. Stretching exercises will help to improve your flexibility. Some of the examples of stretching exercises are the spinal twist, the cat and camel stretch, hamstring stretch, lunge, standing quadriceps stretching, wrist flexion and extension, shoulder overhead and extension, etc. Surf the Internet for a list of stretching exercises and their pictures to learn the right posture. Make sure you hold the stretching posture for a slow reverse count of 10 seconds.
Sample Workout Program: Here is a sample weekly program which you can follow. However, make sure you keep enhancing your workout program by adding more weight and reps.
| Week | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| 1st Week | Warm-up for 10 minutes + Cardio Workout for 45 minutes | ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of shoulder exercises + Stretching | Warm-up for 10 minutes + Cardio Workout for 45 minutes | 10 min Warm-up + ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of chest exercises + Stretching | Warm-up for 10 minutes + Cardio Workout for 45 minutes | Rest | |
| 2nd Week | 10 min Warm-up + ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of abdominal exercises + Stretching | 10 min Warm-up + ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of lower body exercises + Stretching | |||||
| 3rd Week | 10 min Warm-up + ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of triceps and biceps exercises + Stretching | 10 min Warm-up + ½ an hour of cardio followed by 15 minutes of back exercises + Stretching | |||||
Ensure, you take care of your diet when following the workout program to get the optimum results. For weight loss burn more calories than you consume, avoid junk food, and stick to healthy foods. People who want to put muscle mass should follow a high protein diet. So, start your personal training, follow the above guidelines and monitor your workout properly, and you will see result within a few months.
