Workout Planning Guide
A plan you can follow beats a perfect plan you abandon.
Seven steps from blank page to a full training week, plus a weekly template you can copy.
To build a workout plan with a gym exercise planner, decide your goal and how many days you can train, pick a split that fits those days, and fill each session with one exercise from each main movement pattern: squat, hinge, push, pull and single-leg work. Give each exercise 2 to 4 sets in a set rep range, write it into a weekly schedule, and add weight or reps whenever you hit the top of the range. That is the whole method.
The rest of this guide goes through it step by step, with example exercises for every movement pattern, a filled-in weekly workout planner and a blank one to copy. It also covers the part most guides skip: when building your own plan is a bad idea and a ready-made program is the smarter start.
If you are looking for a tool to plan in rather than a method, our roundup of the best free gym workout planners compares seven options. This article is about what goes into the plan.
Should You Build a Custom Workout Plan or Use a Template?
Before you create your own workout plan, be honest about why. A custom plan has real advantages:
- It fits your life. Your days, your session length, your gym's equipment, the exercises your joints like.
- You learn how training works. Once you understand why a plan has the exercises and sets it has, you can fix it yourself when something stalls.
- You are more likely to stick with it. People tend to follow plans they chose and understand.
It also has real downsides, and they hit beginners hardest:
- Over-design. Five chest exercises, three kinds of curls, and a session that takes two hours.
- Too much volume too soon. More sets is not always better if you cannot recover from them.
- Program-hopping. When you wrote the plan, it is easy to rewrite it every week, which means you never stay on anything long enough to see what works.
- Blind spots. Many self-made plans have lots of pushing and very little pulling or leg work.
For a true beginner, a proven template is often the better start. Run a full body workout routine or the beginner workout plan for women for 8 to 12 weeks, then use the steps below to adjust it. A coach makes sense if you are coming back from an injury, have a medical condition, are preparing for a competition, or simply want someone else to check your technique and make the decisions. If you are weighing that option, see our comparison of fitness plan apps vs a personal trainer.
How to Make a Workout Plan in 7 Steps
Work through these in order. Each step narrows down the next one, so by step 7 most of the decisions have made themselves.
Step 1: Pick one main goal
Every plan needs a main goal, because it decides your rep ranges and rest times. Most lifters fall into one of three:
- Build muscle. Moderate weights, moderate reps, enough weekly sets.
- Get stronger. Heavier weights, fewer reps, longer rest, and lots of practice on the lifts you want to improve.
- General fitness or fat loss. A bit of both, done consistently, alongside your diet and daily activity.
These goals overlap a lot. Training for muscle makes you stronger and training for strength builds muscle. Our guide to hypertrophy vs strength training explains where they differ. Pick the one that matters most to you and let it break the ties.
Step 2: Decide how many days a week you can train
Use the number of days you can keep up on a bad week, not on your best one. Three sessions you never miss beat five you skip half the time. The American College of Sports Medicine's position stand on resistance training recommends 2 to 3 days a week for novices, 3 to 4 for intermediates and 4 to 5 for advanced lifters. Also decide how long each session can be. Forty-five to seventy-five minutes is a realistic range for most people.
Step 3: Choose a split that matches your days
A split is how you divide your muscles across the week. Your number of days from step 2 does most of the choosing:
| Days per week | Best-fit split | How each muscle is trained | Ready-made version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-3 | Full body | 2-3 times a week | Full body workout routine |
| 4 | Upper/lower | Twice a week | Upper lower split |
| 3 or 6 | Push/pull/legs | Once (3 days) or twice (6 days) a week | PPL workout |
| 5 | Upper/lower + PPL hybrid, or body-part split | 1-2 times a week | Combine the posts above |
Why do most good splits hit each muscle about twice a week? A 2016 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld and colleagues found that training a muscle twice a week produced more growth than once a week. A larger 2019 follow-up added nuance: when total weekly sets were equal, frequency made no meaningful difference. In practice, twice a week is mostly an easy way to fit enough sets in without marathon sessions. If once a week suits your schedule better and you still do the work, that is fine too.
Step 4: Pick exercises by movement pattern
This is where most self-made plans go wrong. Instead of choosing exercises by muscle ("chest day, so all chest exercises"), choose them by movement pattern. If your week covers every pattern below, your whole body gets trained and your pushing and pulling stay balanced. Pick one or two options per pattern. You do not need them all.
| Movement pattern | Main muscles | Example exercises |
|---|---|---|
| Squat | Quads, glutes | Squat, goblet squat, leg press, hack squat |
| Hinge | Hamstrings, glutes, lower back | Romanian deadlift, deadlift, trap bar deadlift, hip thrust |
| Horizontal push | Chest, front delts, triceps | Bench press, dumbbell bench press, incline dumbbell bench press, push-ups |
| Vertical push | Shoulders, triceps | Overhead press, dumbbell shoulder press, Arnold press |
| Horizontal pull | Mid back, lats, rear delts | Barbell row, seated cable row, one-arm dumbbell row, chest-supported row |
| Vertical pull | Lats, biceps | Pull-ups, chin-ups, lat pulldown |
| Lunge / single-leg | Quads, glutes, balance | Bulgarian split squat, lunges, step-ups, single-leg Romanian deadlift |
| Core | Abs, obliques | Plank, side plank, hanging leg raise, ab wheel rollout |
| Arms and accessories | Biceps, triceps, side delts, hamstrings, calves | Dumbbell curls, triceps pushdown, lateral raise, face pull, leg curl, calf raises |
How to choose between options in a row:
- Start with compound lifts. Squats, hinges, presses and rows train several muscles at once and give you the most for your time. Accessories fill gaps.
- Pick what your gym has and your body tolerates. If barbell squats hurt your hips, a leg press or goblet squat covers the same pattern.
- Balance push and pull. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least as many pulling sets as pushing sets each week.
- Keep the main lifts stable. Choose exercises you will happily do for the next 8 weeks. You cannot track progress on a lift you only do once.
Want more choice for a single body part? Our back workout, chest workout and bicep workout guides compare the options exercise by exercise.
Step 5: Set your sets, reps and rest
These starting points come from the ACSM position stand linked above, which recommends 8 to 12 reps for novices, an emphasis on 6 to 12 reps with 1 to 2 minutes of rest for muscle growth, and heavier work in the 1 to 6 rep range with 3 to 5 minutes of rest for strength. Translated into a simple plan:
| Goal | Main lifts | Accessories | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build muscle | 3 × 6-10 | 2-3 × 10-15 | 1-2 min (longer on big lifts) |
| Get stronger | 3-5 × 3-6 | 2-3 × 8-12 | 3-5 min on main lifts |
| General fitness | 2-3 × 8-12 | 2 × 12-15 | 1-2 min |
Then check your weekly total. A rule of thumb many coaches use is roughly 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week, and beginners can start closer to 8 to 12. The research behind this is a 2017 meta-analysis on training volume, which found that more weekly sets were linked to more muscle growth, with each extra set adding a little. Groups doing 10 or more sets per muscle tended to grow the most, though that comparison only reached the level of a trend. Treat 10 as a target to build toward, not a minimum on day one.
Count a set as "hard" when you finish it with about 1 to 3 reps left in the tank. The RPE calculator helps you put a number on that. As for rest, most people rest less than they should on heavy lifts. Our post on rest times explains how much rest each type of set needs.
Step 6: Plan how you will progress
A plan without a progression rule is just a list of exercises. The simplest rule that works for almost everyone is double progression, a form of progressive overload:
- Pick a rep range, for example 3 sets of 8 to 10.
- Use a weight you can lift for 8 reps on every set with good form.
- Add reps each session until you hit 10 reps on every set.
- Then add the smallest weight jump available and start again at 8.
The ACSM position stand suggests a 2 to 10% load increase once you can do 1 to 2 reps over your target, which fits this approach. Smaller jumps suit upper-body and isolation lifts, bigger jumps suit squats and deadlifts. Use the one-rep max calculator if you want to estimate starting weights from a recent set.
Plan the easy weeks too. Every 6 to 10 weeks, or whenever several lifts stall at once and you feel run down, take a deload week with fewer sets and lighter weights.
Step 7: Write it into a weekly schedule
Last, put each session on a specific day. Leave at least one rest day between sessions that hit the same muscles hard, put your hardest session on the day you have the most time and energy, and order each workout with compound lifts first and accessories last. Then write it down where you will see it in the gym. The next section shows what that looks like.
Weekly Workout Planner Template
Here is a complete week built with the 7 steps: a goal of building muscle and strength, 4 training days, an upper/lower split, every movement pattern covered, and double progression on every lift. Each session takes about 60 minutes. The major muscles get roughly 8 to 12 hard sets a week, a sensible starting point you can add to later.
| Day | Focus | Exercises and sets × reps |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Upper A (heavier) | Bench press 3 × 6-8 Barbell row 3 × 6-8 Overhead press 2 × 8-10 Lat pulldown 2 × 10-12 Dumbbell curls 2 × 10-12 Triceps pushdown 2 × 10-12 |
| Tuesday | Lower A (squat focus) | Squat 3 × 6-8 Romanian deadlift 3 × 8-10 Bulgarian split squat 2 × 10-12 per leg Leg curl 2 × 10-12 Calf raises 3 × 10-15 Plank 2 × 30-45 sec |
| Wednesday | Rest | Rest, or an easy walk |
| Thursday | Upper B (more volume) | Incline dumbbell bench press 3 × 8-10 Pull-ups or lat pulldown 3 × 6-10 Seated cable row 3 × 10-12 Dumbbell shoulder press 2 × 10-12 Lateral raise 2 × 12-15 Face pull 2 × 12-15 |
| Friday | Lower B (hinge focus) | Trap bar deadlift 3 × 5-6 Leg press 3 × 10-12 Lunges 2 × 10 per leg Hip thrust 2 × 8-12 Hanging leg raise 2 × 8-12 |
| Saturday | Optional | Cardio, a sport or a long walk |
| Sunday | Rest | Rest, and plan next week |
Swap any exercise for another from the same row of the movement pattern table and the plan still works. If you can only train three days, a full body routine is the better base. If you want six days, the PPL workout with its push day, pull day and leg day sessions is already laid out.
Blank weekly workout planner to copy
Copy this into a notebook or spreadsheet and fill it in with the 7 steps. Write the focus first, then the movement patterns, then the exact exercises.
| Day | Focus | Exercise 1 | Exercise 2 | Exercise 3 | Exercise 4 | Exercise 5-6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Tuesday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Wednesday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Thursday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Friday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Saturday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
| Sunday | ______ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ | ______ × ___ |
Below the plan, keep a short checklist: Does each muscle get trained about twice a week? Is every movement pattern in the week at least once? Are pulling sets at least equal to pushing sets? Does every session fit your time? Is there a rep range and progression rule for every exercise? If the answer to all five is yes, your plan is ready. If you prefer to print, our weekly training log gives you a page per week, the weight training log tracks every set, and the 12-week progress tracker covers a full training block.
Paper, Spreadsheet or App: Where to Keep Your Plan
The best gym exercise planner is the one you will actually open mid-workout. Each format has trade-offs:
- Paper. Free, fast, no screens between sets, and writing it out helps you think. The downside: no automatic math, and looking up what you lifted three weeks ago means flipping pages.
- Spreadsheet. Endlessly flexible and great for planning on a computer. Our weight training log spreadsheet is a free starting point. The downside: clumsy to edit on a phone with sweaty hands, and every formula is yours to build and fix.
- App. Shows your last numbers automatically, times your rest and keeps your history searchable. The downside: the good ones usually cost something, and a cluttered app can slow you down.
For a full side-by-side, read paper vs digital workout planners. For specific free tools, see our free gym workout planner roundup.
Common Mistakes When You Create Your Own Workout Plan
- Too many exercises. Five or six per session is plenty. If a session runs long, cut an accessory before you cut a main lift.
- Too many sets on day one. Start at the low end of the volume range and add sets only when you are recovering well and progress slows.
- No legs, or no pulling. Check every movement pattern is in your week.
- Constant changes. Changing exercises every week makes progress impossible to measure. Keep the main lifts for at least a full training block.
- No progression rule. If the plan does not say when to add weight, you will probably lift the same weights for months.
- Not tracking. A plan tells you what to do. A log tells you whether it is working. You need both.
When to Change Your Plan
A custom workout plan is not a one-time job, but it should change much less often than most people think. Change your weights and reps every session, your exercises occasionally, and the whole plan only when your goal or schedule changes or your progress has truly stalled. Our guide on how often to update your workout planner gives specific timelines by goal and experience level. If your lifts have stopped moving and you are not sure why, the what's blocking your gains quiz can point you to the likely cause.
Where GymGod Fits
If you would rather keep your plan on your phone, GymGod works as a workout planner and tracker in one. You can build your own routine with drag and drop, set your own sets and rest, and plan your whole week, which is everything from step 7 above. If you would rather skip the design work, you can run one of 9 proven programs with progression and rest times built in, or let the AI coach make a routine for you that stays consistent, so you can progressively overload instead of starting over.
Once the plan is running, the tracking takes care of step 6. Your last weights and reps appear the moment you start an exercise, and auto-progression calculates your next weight from what you actually lifted. Your first 3 workouts are free, with no account needed.
Gym Exercise Planner FAQ
How do I make my own workout plan?
Pick one main goal, decide how many days a week you can train, choose a split that fits those days, and fill each session with exercises from the main movement patterns: squat, hinge, push, pull and single-leg. Give each exercise 2 to 4 sets in a rep range, add a progression rule, and write it into a weekly schedule.
How many exercises should be in a workout plan?
Four to six exercises per session is enough for most people: one or two compound lifts first, then two to four accessories. Across the week, aim to cover every movement pattern at least once and train each muscle about twice.
How many sets per muscle per week should I plan?
A common rule of thumb is about 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week, with beginners starting around 8 to 12. Research shows more weekly sets tend to produce more muscle growth, but only if you can recover from them, so build up gradually.
What is the best weekly workout split?
The one that matches the days you can train. Full body suits 2 to 3 days a week, upper/lower suits 4 days, and push/pull/legs suits 3 or 6 days. When total weekly sets are equal, research has found little difference in muscle growth between training frequencies, so choose based on your schedule.
Should beginners make their own workout plan?
Usually not at first. A proven beginner template avoids the common mistakes of too many exercises, too much volume and constant changes. Run one for 8 to 12 weeks, learn how it works, then customize it.
How long should I follow a workout plan before changing it?
Keep the main structure for at least 8 to 12 weeks as long as you are still making progress. Change weights and reps every session, and swap individual exercises only when they stop progressing or bother your joints.
