Workout Plans for Women at the gym

Must-Haves For Building Your Own Program

If you're a DIY kind of girl, you might want to build your own program. If that's the case, here's what every weightlifting regimen needs:

If you choose to build your own program, it should include compound lifts, accessory lifts, and a cardio regimen that match your goals.

Example Compound lifts

• Squats
• Deadlift
• Lunges
• Pull-up
• Dips
• Bench press
• Push press
• Push-up

Compound lifts are lifts that take more than one muscle group to perform. If you want to add some strength-building aspects to your program, be sure to include one or two of these compound lifts in every workout you do.

Along with helping you build lean muscle, these movements are important for increasing your athleticism, strength, mobility, and cardiovascular fitness. Because you use more than one muscle group to do these lifts, you need more energy (calories) to perform them.

Squats, for example, will give you more bang for your workout buck than leg press because you have to use more of your muscles and, therefore more energy, to do them.

Example Accessory/
Isolation lifts

• Biceps curl
• Triceps extension
• Triceps push-down
• Calf raise
• Leg curl
• Leg extension
• Front raise

Accessory or isolation lifts are used as partners to compound lifts. Depending on the volume of your compound lift, you can add 2-4 accessory lifts per day.

Bodybuilding programs are often built on isolation movements. Isolation movements are single-joint exercises. These are used to increase the shape and size of a body part—if you want to improve your aesthetics, isolation lifts are perfect.

For example, if you'd like to isolate your biceps, then you'd do biceps curls. To isolate your calves, you'd do exercises like calf raises which exclusively target your calf muscles.

Choosing sets and reps

The bodybuilder standby for sets and reps is usually 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps. That's usually the right rep range for muscle growth (hypertrophy). If you're a beginner, make sure your first rep looks just like your last rep. If you fail on the 8th rep, use lighter weight. If you're unfamiliar with many of the movements, stick with lighter weight until you have a great foundation and feel comfortable challenging yourself; this will help you avoid injury.

Shape is great for your muscles, but strength is also important. To work on your strength, do heavier compound movements in the 4-6 rep range. Traditionally, compound lifts are done with fewer reps and isolation/accessory movements are done with lighter weight for more reps.

Rest

The less time you rest between sets, the more difficult and intense your workout will be. Short rest periods (30-45 seconds) will tax your muscles and your cardiovascular system. Longer rest periods (1-2 minutes) will give you more time to recover before you hit your next set.

Progression

Progression is the secret ingredient for every successful training program. It's the reason your body changes over time. You can't do the exact same movements using the exact same weight for weeks and weeks and weeks and expect new results. You have to constantly push yourself. Once you develop a solid base, increase the weights, increase the reps, or decrease the rest periods.