The Fitness Workout Program - Your road map to success...

A fitness workout program is a well laid out plan you use to advance step by step, workout after workout, week by week, toward the successful conclusion of your exercise goals.

-If you’re one of many people who go into their next workout without really knowing exactly what the goals of the workout are...

-If you keep reproducing the same workout, session after session without really knowing what to change or when to change it...

-If you don’t know where you’re supposed to be next month on your path to fitness, then you either have vague notions about what your exercise goals are, or you don’t have a concrete workout plan.

A fitness workout program is essential.

You wouldn’t drive across the country without first carefully planning your itinerary- which routes and highways to travel, where to stay overnight, what you should visit, and how much time you should spend, etc.

Yet, very few folks give much thought to the structure of a single workout, let alone an entire training program.

Consider the following...

Ms. Peacock has just come back from her nutritionist who has suggested that in addition to her new meal plan, a weekly net energy expenditure level of 1000 Calories would go a long way toward helping her lose weight and reducing her risk for disease.

Ms. Peacock recently bought a brand new treadmill she plans to use from home, that features her exercise intensity readout in METs. At a current weight of 165 lbs, if Ms. Peacock trains at an intensity of 6.7 METs, how many calories does she burn each minute of training?

If she commits five days a week to her walking program, how long should each workout last in order to meet her weekly 1000 Calorie expenditure goal?

Any good personal trainer can solve this example with just the information presented here and indeed, tell you that Ms. Peacock will be burning 7.48 Calories per minute (net).

If she trains five days a week, each workout should last 26 minutes and 44.3 seconds to burn the weekly 1000 Calories.

Moreover, before Ms. Peacock even sets foot on the treadmill, it is entirely possible to plan in advance at what pace she needs to walk at, and what incline or percent (%) grade she should set to meet her energy expenditure goal.

It is not unusual for good personal trainers to plan at great depth, every detail of the client’s fitness workout program.

We know for example, how many reps and sets to assign our clients. We know how much weight they will be lifting. We know the exact number of exercises they will perform and we have scrupulously selected each exercise for a specific purpose. We calculate every detail down to the exact heart beat they will train at.

When it comes to our clients’ workout plan, we program what they should be doing with tremendous precision.

The term metabolic equivalents, abbreviated as METs is often used to describe exercise intensity.

A single MET is defined as the amount of energy expended during one minute of rest.

Two METs is therefore twice the amount of energy you expend at rest. Three METs is three times as much, etc.

In this example, training at 6.7 METs means Ms. Peacock is expending 6.7 times the amount of energy she would normally expend at rest.

At the base, all program design should be founded on hard science and current available research.

A certified personal trainer possesses all of the science and theoretical knowledge necessary to develop and implement a good fitness workout program.

The art, lies in fine-tuning the program to meet individual responses to the exercise stimulus and to match the differing rates and magnitude of individual development because everyone reacts differently to the same exercise stress.

In essence, what might be considered excessive training for one person might not be enough training for another. What might be effective for someone, may be ineffective for someone else. What may be considered safe training for me, may not be safe for you.

Believing you will get the same results as someone who has been successful if you follow the same plan, is not necessarily true.

For this reason, your fitness workout program must be personalized to account for individual differences.

It must be designed for you and you only- taking into account your own abilities, past injuries, medical history, personal preferences, and your own goals.

This is one of the most fundamental principles of good program design.
It is known as the Principle of Individual Differences.

The 'One Size Fits All' fallacy...

As obvious as it sounds, it’s also the one principle which is most blatantly lacking from workout programs you get from muscle magazines, books, Internet sources, or even those you borrow from a friend or workout partner.

You have to know that any workout you get from the media is essentially a generic program designed for everyone, and no one.

The 'One Size Fits All' approach to program design does not always ensure you're getting the most out of your workouts. Nor is it always safe for everyone.

To train more effectively, break through plateaus and reach your goals more rapidly, your best approach for a personally designed fitness workout program created specifically for you, is to train with a certified personal trainer.

However, not everyone will want to work with a trainer.

In this instance, rather than following generic programs intended for the masses, I believe you may be better off writing your own fitness workout program.

By learning how to create your own workout plan individualized to your unique set of circumstances, you will be steps ahead of where you are now.

Whether you’re new to fitness or a veteran exerciser, every one of your workouts should at the least include the four fundamental training components of fitness:

-Warm up

-Cardiovascular (cardiorespiratory or aerobic) training

-Weight (resistance or strength) training

-Flexibility training

Each of these components need to be carefully planned. This means your fitness workout program is really a series of plans within a plan.

Coming soon... Where you can learn how to create your own fitness workout program.

You’ll soon find out about all of the different ‘variables’ that make up each of the components of fitness, and how to individualize them to your specific set of circumstances for optimal results.

For general guidelines to building a fitness workout program, see the following pages:

Warm Up Section

Cardiovascular Training Section

Resistance Training Section

Flexibility Training Section

Exercise Library: Physical Fitness Exercises

Exercise Library: Stability Ball Exercises

Exercise Library: Illustrated Stretching Exercises

--In the interim, this is your next logical topic: Fitness Warm Up

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