HOW TO EFFECTIVELY STRUCTURE YOUR GYM SESSIONS

How do you plan your strength sessions? Do you program them in phases, have a logical process to the exercises or do you just go round the gym moving from equipment to equipment? 

The order in which we place exercises during a strength program is actually very important, and how well this is done will determine how effective your sessions are.

1. Dynamic Warm Up

The warm up should be fun, engaging and relatively autonomous after the first few times of doing it, meaning that it should certainly be one that is repeated at least throughout a phase of a program. Try to avoid a new warm up for each workout as having familiar movements will serve as an early warning detection system. It’s your way of seeing how your body feels at the beginning of each session; what feels tight? is there any pain? or what might need a little extra attention? A sign of a good warm up routine is a series of exercises that allows you to flow from one to another, target all the major muscle groups and one that reinforces quality movement patterns.

Often you’ll see an extension of our warms ups is the inclusion of 2-3 activation exercises using resistance bands. Bands are essentially a great way of reinforcing movement mechanics before adding load. It’s not so much about the level of intensity or resistance applied but more about the positions and movement patterns that you are working to create optimal stimulus throughout the body.

2. Compound Exercise

Skill work (e.g. Squat, Deadlift)

Compound exercises relate to those that demand multiple muscles groups to work. Generally speaking for endurance athletes compound exercises are the most effective exercises as they best replicate the complexed full body demands of your sport. For example, when performing a squat, even though we are primarily looking to build strength through the legs, there are a whole variety of extra muscles that are being recruited and forced to work to allow you to achieve optimal range and hold a stable position.

Due to the neurological demand there is a logical order you need to keep during your strength sessions. These bigger, more complexed exercises want to be done when you’re at your freshest, not only to get the most out of them but also to prevent careless injury. Working at relatively high percentages of your body weight or at least aiming towards those numbers. As endurance athletes who usually have a high training volume already 1-2 compound exercises per session are sufficient.

3. Plyometric Exercises

When included you want your plyometric/power based exercises to be towards the beginning of your session, simply due to the complexity and demanding nature of the movements. In terms of dosage these need to be prescribed as short powerful bouts of work with a focus on quality over quantity e.g. 3-4 sets of 1-5 reps with 60 seconds recovery in between.

4. Accessory Exercises

For a complete approach to your program you will have a number of areas that will need more focused attention, as a result of your goals, previous injury history or individual training background. As opposed to the compound exercises earlier on where we’re working the body as a whole, you’ll be working one particular muscle group or area allowing you to target areas specifically. You’re going to be looking at 2-3 exercises that should include either upper body, lower body, single leg or a below the knee focus. For time efficiency these are commonly worked through in a superset format with two exercises of differing focus prescribed back to back before taking a rest e.g. exercise A, exercise B, rest, repeat.

5. Core/Posterior Chain

As you come to the end of your session you should have already accumulated a significant amount of work and now we are looking to work your body under fatigue. Now is a great time for us to train and challenge the stability of your core and hip musculature in relative isolation (remember all your exercises done so far will have required a degree of core work, but now is the opportunity to be specific). We want a heavy focus on rotational and posterior chain core development i.e. cable wood chops, back extensions should but high on your priority list compared to crunches or sit ups. In terms of time spent, super-setting two core exercises that include either rotational, isometric, lateral or flexion/extension focus will ensure you’re effectively working the area that will help improve your performance and reduce the likelihood of injury.

Troubleshooting

“My program takes too long to get through”

A quality and effective strength session should be completed in less that an hour. If it’s taking any longer, then you are probably trying to achieve too much in this window - you’d be better off stripping back the noise and working on just a few primary movements.