There are so many gym workouts to pick from, which can be confusing for a beginner. But here’s a workout I recommend with some flexibility.

Type of workouts

You mainly go to the gym to build strength and muscle. But you may want to build more muscle to look larger and fill in that t-shirt. Or strength to be able to be able to perform better at your main sport. Some may want to be simple and build both nearly as equal as each other. The main things that will change due to these goals are the reps of the exercises and the weight used.

Gym routine for more strength

The weight you use will be heavier as if you want to get stronger, you need to use weights that are hard to lift, and this will result in you doing 8-9 reps close to failure. Sometimes, you may even be doing 7 reps, which is ok.

For the lateral raise, I recommend you use a weight that gives you 10 reps or more because using heavy weight on the lateral raise can give you shoulder pain (it has happened to me). If you find that this happens with more exercises, like bicep curls, then decrease the weight.

You may want a slightly longer rest break between sets than usual, but regardless your rest should be between 1.5 and 2 minutes.

Gym routine for more muscle

You want to be able to exaggerate most of the movements for building muscle, so going more slowly to emphasise that burn. So you’ll need to use lighter weights so you can control these movements better. Not too light so that it becomes an endurance workout, but you’ll want to use a weight that gives you 13- 14 reps going close to failure.

Your rest break between each set should be 1 minute and 20 seconds minimum and 1 minute and 30 seconds maximum.

Gym routine for both

Some just want to keep it simple and have an even balance between both, and in this case you’ll want to use a weight that gives you 11-12 reps close to failure.

Your rest between sets should be 1.5 minutes.

Exercises and priorities

Some exercises must be in your routine no matter your goal, which are generally compound exercises as these are usually the most functional exercises and they also target large muscle groups. Here is a list of those exercises:

Upper body

• Bench press
• Pullups
• Dips
• Shoulder press (sitting on bench, dumbbells)

Lower body

• Squats

Here’s a list of some other exercises that will be in your workout:

Upper body

• Lat pulldown
• Pec fly
• Lateral raises (sitting on the bench)
• Overhead tricep extension (with cables)
• Bicep curls (seated on a bench, dumbbells)

Lower body

• Calf raises

Some exercises are on a bench instead of standing because it forces you to only use the muscle that you’re meant to use, increasing the effectiveness of the exercise.

The Workout

Here’s a chest, shoulders and triceps, back, biceps and legs split workout, assuming you’re trying to equally build strength and muscle.

Chest shoulders triceps (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)

Benchpress: 5 x 11-12 reps

Dips: 3 x (how many reps you can do, close to failure)

Overhead tricep extension (with cables): 3 x 11-12 reps

Pec fly: 3 x 11-12 reps

Shoulder press (sitting on a bench, dumbbells): 5 x 11-12 reps

Lateral raises (sitting on a bench): 4 x 11-12 reps

Back biceps legs (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

Squats: 6 x 11-12 reps

Pullups: 5 x (as many as you can do, close to failure)

Lat pulldown: 3 x 11-12 reps

Bicep curls (seated on a bench, dumbbells): 4 x 11-12 reps

Calf raises: 5 x 20 reps

Recommended workout schedules

How often you work out will greatly affect your progress. Working out infrequently means you miss out on opportunities to work out and create micro-tears in your muscles that could recover in time when you next work out. Contrarily, working out too often won’t give your body muscles enough time to physically rebuild and recover, so you won’t be able to perform at your peak. So avoid working out on back-to-back days.

The best workout frequencies are 2 – 3 times a week with close to even intervals between each workout. Working out thrice a week may be slightly better if you don’t do excessive sets in your workouts. But what schedule you choose should be based on how much time you have throughout your week.

Pick your workout schedule:

• 3 upper body, 3 lower body
  • Upper body: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
  • Lower body: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
  • Since the workouts are close to each other, they’ll be less intense so reduce the sets of each exercise by one
• 2 upper, 2 lower body
  • Upper body: Monday, Thursday
  • Lower body: Tuesday, Friday
• Full body
  • You can do it thrice a week: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday
  • Or twice a week: Tuesday and Saturday
  • Since the workouts are close to each other, they’ll be less intense so reduce the sets of each exercise by one

Tips for success of working out

Warmup

Warming up gets your muscles ready to lift heavier weights, and it gets blood flowing through them so you’re less likely to get injured, and you can also perform better in your workout.

Your warmup set doesn’t count as a real set, and it should be done with a significantly lighter weight. For example, on the benchpress, if you usually bench 60kg in your set, use 40kg for the warmup, and do the number of reps you usually do in your set.

As another example, if you usually use 16kg for your shoulder presses, use 12kg for the warmup.

Full range of motion

Doing the exercise properly ensures you get the most out of the exercise, and it targets your muscles better. So on the bench press, make sure the bar touches your chest on your way down. For squats, make sure you are down so your glutes are parallel with your knees, or maybe even slightly below. With bicep curls, go all the way down, then return up and squeeze at the top.

Only go to failure on the last set

Throughout all your sets, apart from the last one, go close to failure. This means that after completing the set, you should have the potential of doing 1 or 2 more reps. This ensures your performance is nearly consistent throughout the rest of your sets if you go to failure every set, you put unnecessary fatigue on your muscles and your performance significantly decreases in the following sets, reducing the volume of the exercises you can do (because your do significantly fewer reps).

But on your final set, do as many reps as you can.