Fitness and performance

Designing Your Resistance Training Program

To design your own basic resistance training program, you need to decide:

  1. How often should I lift? A minimum of 2 days/week is recommended and 3 days/week is better.


  2. How much should I lift? To achieve good basic strength, it is best to do 2-3 sets of 8-12 repetitions to volitional fatigue. When you can do more than 12 repetitions, add some more weight. If you have hypertension or risk factors for heart disease, you should not go to volitional fatigue because your blood pressure will go to high. Instead, you should stop each set when it feels “somewhat hard.?/li>

  3. What lifts should I do? It is best to do full body routines that incorporate as many muscles as possible. To help develop your program we have provided several exercises below. Choose two exercises from the chest, legs, back, and shoulders and one exercise from the biceps, triceps, and calves. Your recording sheet will then be automatically produced.

For more information on designing your own resistance training program click here

Chest:
 
Bench Press Decline Press
Dips Dumbbell Flyes
Incline Press Pec Deck Machine
Push Ups  

Core:
 
Alternate Arm/Leg Raise Crunches
Curl Ups Hip bridges
Oblique_Twists Pelvic Tilts
Reverse Crunches Roman Chair
Stability Ball

Legs:
 
Knee Extension Leg Curl
Leg Press Lunge
Forward lunge Side/lateral lunge
Transverse lunge Squat
Step-Up  

Back:
 
Back Extensions Hammer Iso-High Row
High Pulley Row Lat Pullover
Low Pulley Row Lat Pull Down
Single-Arm Row Pull Ups
Standing Plate-Loaded Row Seated Row

Shoulders:
 
Anterior Deltoid Raise Arnold Press
Behind-Neck Press Lateral Deltoid Raise
Overhead Press Rear Deltoid Flyes
Rotator Cuff Shoulder Jerk
Shoulder Shrugs Upright Row

Biceps:
 
Chin Ups Curls-Concentration
Curls-EZ Bar Curls-One Arm
Curls-Two Arm Curl-Hammer
Curls-Preacher

Triceps:
 
French Press Kickbacks
Triceps Dip Triceps Extensions
Triceps Pushdown Triceps Push Ups

Calves
 
Machine Calf Raises Donkey Calf Raises
Seated Calf Raises Dumbbell Calf Raises
Barbell Calf Raises  

Multi-Joint/Power
 
Clean & Jerk Deadlift
High Pull Power_Clean
Snatch  

Miscellaneous
 
Wrist Curls