How I Structure Workouts

The topic today is how to properly structure your workouts. To get the most work done while minimizing your rest periods, pair antagonistic body parts (ie. biceps and triceps, quads and hamstrings, chest and back). Pairing exercises like this will allow you to do more total work in your session, and it will increase muscle activation by inhibiting the antagonist.

Depending on your goal, you may use anywhere from 2-10 different exercises, with 6 being average for my clients. Using 6 exercises means ,on average, 3 different groups (labelled A, B, and C). In order to keep track of the exercise order, I use the following system (which was taught to me by Charles Poliquin):

A1 Chest
A2 Back
B1 Chest
B2 Back
C1 Chest
C2 Back

Exercise A1 is done first, then you would proceed to exercise A2 after resting the prescribed time. Once done the set of A2 you would rest again before returning to A1 and repeating the cycle until all of your sets of group A are done. Then you would do the same with groups B and C.

Having a set plan in place will make your workouts more efficient, and therefore you'll get a better result.