all right so welcome back this video is going to be about how to design a program now I should pref preface this by saying that instead of writing your own program you should join a training group or hire a coach if for whatever reason you don't want to do those things maybe cost then I'll run you through I guess an off the top of the head sort of blueprint or at least the process that I go through in terms of I guess thought process so the first thing is you're going to ask the client how many days a week they want to train if they don't have a preference I personally think 4 days a week is best now that is a broad statement um there might be contexts where a five time a week split allows you to have like a slightly higher frequency for a certain muscle group and maybe it gives you like the flexibility that you're looking for but I personally think at the four times a week Upp or lower is the best split now you could argue and say that you know based on the weekly net stimulus thing and everything that Paul has said that you know maybe three times full body is better I I don't know if the difference between twice a week and three times a week is going to be like huge I think maybe it's been slightly overhyped and that's coming from someone who is mentoring with Chris I'm not saying Chris is overhyping it I think Tik Tok is overhyping it so yes full body is great yes you can do full body three times a week and that allows some muscles to have a three times frequency and that's great but I still like upper lower upper lower and you might run that like upper lower rest upper lower rest rest and that's your whole week done you could of course do up a lower rest up a lower rest repeat now that would be a split that operates outside of a 7-Day cycle and that's totally fine the only thing there is that you're not training on the same days every week which can be a bit annoying so let me readjust this mic so let's say that the client says I want to train 4 days a week awesome they ask you they say you know um what about your opinion I always say four times a week now if you're writing your own program and you're doing a 4-day split here's what you should do you've got to ask yourself whether you want to prioritize pecs delts back or arms let's for the sake of this example say that you're a normal proportion person and you kind of just want to prioritize your entire upper body which just means that you don't want any priority at all so what you would do in my opinion is you start with pecs it seems to be the most logical thing when you look at a physique the eyes often go to the pecs and the shoulders so you start with pecs because doing pecs with fresh shoulders makes makes more sense to me than doing shoulders first and then going into pecs with like sore delts so that's kind of the rationale for me saying that PEC should go first so let's say on a Monday you're going to do pegs first just do two sets of a flat press that's all you really need for this session this Monday session in our in our hypothetical program so you've done some pressing you might go okay well since I want to stay nice and proportioned I don't want to give too much priority to the pressing muscles I'm going to do a pulling movement second so you just do like a chest supported row now we've hit pecs we've hit traps and rear delts potentially some lats depending on the row you might go back to another pushing muscle so you might go to lateral raises you do a couple sets there ask yourself what haven't we done yet you haven't done a pure lat movement again depending on the type of row you're doing for the traps you might need a lat movement uh its own movement so you just do a normal frontal plane pull down so we've done pecs we've done a row we've done side delt and then you've done LPS and all that leaves his arms so you do biceps and triceps now it literally is so simple like that was such a simple explanation and yet people are I think intentionally complicating this because I can do that you know distracted without really even thinking or looking at it like it's such a simple formula and people sit down and write programs and they still can't come up with that um um now that's just a random order of exercises you know you could also do pecs delts traps slats so pushing pulling arms you could start let's say you want to prioritize lats you start with a frontal plane pull down you start with a traditional l pull down that's not a problem then go into your PEX then go delts then traps then arms you might want some extra priority in the arms wow that's noisy that is noisy you might want some extra priority in the arms so you do your pressing movements so you might do pecs and then immediately go into triceps now you probably shouldn't do triceps before PEC in my opinion but if you wanted to you could do triceps and then a pec deck right so if you want to get creative and bring the arms up and you want to think about it you might think triceps and then a peck press maybe not the best idea but triceps and then a pec deck where we're not using the tricep because the elbow stays constant and we're just training pure ruction maybe that's a better idea so you can go triceps pec deck lap pull down row lateral razes bicep curl easy you might want to do some some bicep priority so you might go row bicep curl lat pull down PEC side delts triceps last I still wouldn't put biceps before back because one I mean your biceps just are not as important as your back in terms of over overall physique development if someone has lacking arms it doesn't look amazing but if someone's back is lacking like their entire back that's probably a bit of a problem um and maybe that's my bias take is someone who doesn't Str struggle to grow their arms but that's just my opinion so I wouldn't do biceps before your main pulling movements I wouldn't do triceps before your main pressing now something I see that I do not like is an incline press and a shoulder press on the same day that to me doesn't make any sense at all so let's break this town down from an anatomical uh perspective and then I promise we'll move on to the lower body sessions as well what does the incline press train well from about here to here your upper Peck has the best leverage and then above there your front delt has the best leverage now important thing to understand about Leverage is that just because something has the best leverage does not mean the other thing is not being trained you're still sending Central motor command to the front delt throughout the entire range of motion it's just not as much as the the upper PEC so even though the incline press is technically an upper Peck exercise you're still hitting front delts and I would say you're still hitting front delts to the point that you probably don't need to train them again for the rest of that session so to then go and do a shoulder press movement straight after incline press doesn't make any sense to me I mean it doesn't make any sense anatomically certainly but it doesn't make any sense to me even when I try to think of it like a bro like sometimes I try to get out of the optimal head space and think of things like AO grow thinks of things and I just can't rationalize this decision because it's literally an incline press and then you put the seat up a little bit and you just do more of an incline press not efficient bordering on redundant don't do incline press into shoulder press or shoulder press into incline press that is just my opinion again do whatever you want I shouldn't say don't do it do whatever you want but I wouldn't do it now we've kind of touched on pecs we touched on the incline press the shoulders when it comes to your lateral raises for your side delt just pick any lateral raise variation we saw that study recently showing that doesn't matter if it's lengthened shortened mid-range whatever just pick a lateral raise it will work simple if you're training lats do a pull down if you want to train them out in front of your body that's okay too now when it comes to a redundancy let's talk lats and traps let's say I'm doing an upper body sorry a a trap row rather let's say I'm doing a trap row chest supported tar let's say that I want to get my arm out here further away from my body when I'm rowing because that's going to be more traps rear delt less lat because obviously the further away from the body you are the less lat there is cuz it loses Leverage so if you're doing a movement out here a row you can pretty much guarantee that you're really not using much um lat at all maybe some thoracic lat out here but very minimal you could technically go then do a single arm lat Row in the sagittal plane and it wouldn't be redundant but if your trap row has your elbow quite close to your body like this and your r in here you're getting shoulder extension and you're getting thoracic um ret sorry you're getting scapular retraction you are training lats end traps and rear delts and terries and whatever else to to do a chest supported row where your elbow is quite tucked and you're definitely hitting quite a bit of lats to do that and then to go do a single arm lat row I wouldn't say it's redundant but it's getting close because this is A sagittal plane tar row where my elbows are tucked and then I go and do a single arm sagittal plane row yes I'm using less traps in my single arm because I'm trying to train the lats but it's pretty much the same muscle and the same movement same joint angle whatever I won't make the claim it's redundant because if you want to maximize muscle grow you need isolation work as well but it's important to consider when it comes to volume selection because let's say for whatever reason you wanted to do three sets of a te- bar I would only do two but you want to do three and then you go and do three sets of a single arm row that's six sets of one muscle the lat in the same plane in the same joint angle that would be redundant but if you wanted to do two sets of the te- bar where you're getting traps and lats and rear delts and then you want to go maximize your lat stimulus for that session by doing another single arm row maybe a set or two I wouldn't say that was redundant so it's important to understand biomechanics um anatomy and especially physiology in terms of stimulus when it comes to programming because most people would just do oh yeah this is definitely for my traps and then I'm pretty sure this is for my lats and then they do the movement so bad that they're pretty much training the same muscles anyway and it's just a bit of a [ __ ] show so put a little bit of thought into this this stuff when you're doing your own program you know don't do an incline press and then a shoulder press cuz it's pretty much the same movement don't do heaps of rowing for your traps and lats and then go do heaps of Flats in the same in the same um joint angle same plane everything just have a think about this stuff now if you're doing again this row out here where you're super far away super abducted sure go do some lats in the sagittal plane however if your row is a lot of traps a lot of lats at the same time which some machines are you can then just do a lap pull down just do a traditional laat pull down in the frontal plane ad duction because then you've trained scapular retraction shoulder extension in the row at the same time because those two movements occur and then you've gone and done a frontal plane pull down so none of that is redundant and when it comes to maximizing lack growth I haven't looked deep into this Theory but I don't know if we have to actually train shoulder extension on its own in like the single arm row to maximize lack growth I would say you could get pretty close to maximizing with just a pull down and just any chest support row like a t- bar where you're hitting traps and lats you could argue adding a single arm row gives you a bit extra I'd probably agree but like the difference is you know minimal so if your rows involve a lot of trap uh lats and traps maybe just do the frontal plane pull down try it give it a go maybe don't do any single arm work for the lats and just see how the progression is on your lats it's just an interesting thought so what have we covered we covered delts and pecs if you want to put triceps first just do the pec deck so arms we haven't talked about arms when it comes to bicep training I have a suspicion to maximize growth we only need to do two things we need to change train the biceps from about 0° of elbow flexion so maybe the extended position maybe just before it so maybe 10 to 15 degrees of flexion all the way up to 90° that is the first thing you need to do and the second thing you need to do to maximize bicep growth is to have a tricep support during that curl so a preacher curl or an incline dumbbell curl obviously a standing curl is hardest here because this is your lever arm this is the axis of rotation here is gravity it forms a right angle that is when it's hardest but if you can make it hardest down here in that more lengthen position it's probably better we've also seen studies recently show that the biceps kind of grow maximally if you train them here if you train them here at the end of the day it doesn't really matter in my opinion you just need a full range of motion don't don't think too hard about the sciencey stuff um because we're not even really sure and that's why it's hard to explain because we really don't know we should we We theorize that maybe they grow better at longer lengths because of the length tension relationship but then you have studies show that even in a shorten curl it produces the same growth of the length in curl and so who knows so when it comes to choosing your bicep exercises a preacher curl a dumbbell incline curl where you have a tricep support anything where you're stable you don't need to do stretch curls you don't need to do the Dr mik chest up shoulders back shoulder extension curl down here with 5 lbs you don't need to do that because there's a difference between lengthening in accordance with the length tension relationship and stretching and obviously lengthening and stretching are two different things lengthening my bicep would be bringing my arm close to full elbow extension wouldn't it this would be shortening this would be lengthening now stretching would be all the way back here cuz the bicep attaches to the shoulder you do not need to stretch you just need to lengthen get your arm full extension or close to it whatever you prefer it's not going to make a difference so that's our first upper session done that was 20 minutes so I'm going to speed up but the the rest of it easier leg session leg session a on Tuesday for example you're going to do your primary squatting movement or your primary hinging movement depending on your priority we're going to assume earlier in the week we have a greater potential for growth because we are fresher I'm just going to check the time cuz I got to cook dinner very soon so when it comes to your first lower session if you want to prioritize quads do a hack squat if you want to prioritize hamstrings and inductors do the stiff leg deadlift let's let's say we're going to prioritize quads two sets of hack squat two sets of leg extension and that's your quads done for our first lower session you then go into let's say some seated hamstring curls and you might do two to three sets I don't think there's anything wrong with doing three sets because we're only going to do three sets in this entire workout for hamstrings so we've got two sets of ha squat two leg extension three seated curl and then we throw in either glutes if you want to throw in glutes or Cal razors you might even do another set of adductors maybe a set cuz we're going to train some adductors on our hack squat right so if we're going to put aductor in you know we only do one or two sets here and then you can do three sets of carves because it's carves and it doesn't matter anyway now that's our quad focused or anterior focused quads and adductors leg day while we're on the topic of leg day let's do the second one so you guys can remember cuz it'll be easier to understand so that's our first leg day our second leg day might be posterior focused and we're going to start with a primary compound movement tick a few boxes like this s leg deadlift which is going to give us hamstrings and adductors and it's going to be more or less adductors depending how deep you go if if you don't go that deep it might be more hamstrings if you go quite deep like in a traditional stiff leg de left it might be more adductors from there you might then do you might do two sets of that and then you might do one set of line curls to train knee flexion done that's hamstrings done for the entire week three sets on the first day two sets of stiff leg deadlift and then one set of lying curls we're we're also obviously going to train quads as well on this day so you might do one set of leg press and one set of leg extension you might just do two sets of leg extension no leg press at all um you might do two sets of leg press no leg extension at all or vice versa whatever pretty simple then you could do maybe some glutes Maybe you want to train glutes so you do some hip thrusts and then you throw in calves it is so simple stable movements not too high in volume using a two times frequency I mean it really is this simple I'm trying to make this as applicable as I possibly can for you guys um obviously if we had a more advanced lifter it would take some more thought if we had um someone trying to specialize in certain areas it would take some more thought someone with tricky equipment or maybe an injury it would take some more thought this is just the most simple way I can put it those are our leg days done so we've got to do our second upper day to finish off the week so you might do Monday upper Tuesday lower uh Thursday upper Friday lower or Saturday lower just itchy so our second upper day we started on the other day with let's say we did a flat press depending on you know whether we do the triceps or the pec deck um let's say for the sake of this example our first upper day was flat press well you could just do incline press you don't have to do PE Tech it's not necessary so let's say you do flat press incline press that's your PEC done for the week done two sets two sets on the other day or two sets of flat press one set of pec deck two sets of incline there are so many ways you can do it let's just say we do let's just say we do two sets of flat two sets of incline and we're done we then go into maybe some lateral razes if you want to prioritize those you could then go into another chest supported row and then you just do whatever lat movement you haven't already done so if on the first session you did sagittal plane single arm on the second session you do frontal plane laat pull down if you had a done frontal plane La pull down on the first day on the second day you just do your single arm Row in the sagittal plane it is really that simple and then of course you go into your triceps and biceps to finish up the session now if you do an overhead tricep movement on Monday do a tricep Movement by your side on Thursday or vice versa if you do a movement for the biceps on Monday that's hardest down here maybe on Thursday you do a movement for the biceps that's hardest here so you might do a preacher curl that's hardest in the bottom and an alternating dumbbell curl that's hardest in this more shortened position at about that mid-range you can do both bicep movements in the lengthen position as well of course and that would maybe theoretically be better but it doesn't hurt at all to just do an alternate in curl so that is like 30 minutes how to ride a 4day up a lower program I don't know if it made that much sense cuz I'm just yapping um but it really is simple guys I'll quickly recap it and then I'll wrap it up and I'll do the rest of my steps without boring you guys so uper low in my opinion one of the best splits maybe full body is better let's just say for the sake of this example you want to write a 4 day upper lower program you start with your pushing you don't need to do pec deck you can just do flat press incline press you then go into your rowing movements or your delt movements depending on your priorities for me my back is more important than my delts right now so I go pressing pulling delts arms I'll say it one more time pressing pulling delts arms I'm strong enough that I cannot do two presses in the same session now you might say what about JP you know what about Jordan Peters he does multiple pressing I am not Jordan Peters I'm strong I'm not strong like Jordan Peters and I am not gifted like Jordan Peters now I could theoretically maybe I'm making maybe I'm overstating maybe I could do too presses in the same workout maybe I could do a flat press and a shoulder press but the way I train the weights that I push and the amount of ego that I use probably wouldn't survive two presses I have a long wing span 6' 3 so it's a lot of range of motion for me um I could do two presses if I want if I had to I guess but I don't want to I don't think I need to press for my delts um right now for me I think I can just do my lateral raises and I'm good so pressing pulling delt arms pressing pulling delt arms write that down quad Focus leg day squat leg extension done squat leg extension done squat leg extension adductors glutes hamstrings calves any combination of those you don't have to do glutes leg day B primary hinge movement RDL stiff leg deadlift or glutes if you're a chick or you're riding for check so primary posterior movement more hamstrings or more glutes then quads then calves maybe you throw a ductors in there somewhere so easy second up a day do whatever push uh pressing variation you didn't do on the first one so if you did incline do flat if you did flat do incline if you did a laat pull down here do a laat pull down here if you did a laat pull down here do a l pull down here if you did a um let's say you did a chest supported row on one day maybe the other day you just do a Kelo shrug because the traps don't attach to the arm so you don't actually have to move your arm to maximize trap growth I mean you probably should in practice but but in theory you can just do a Kelo shrug so if you do a chest support a row it's totally fine to do the same one again or a different one A different chest supported row that's totally fine not redundant in my opinion but you could do a Kelo shrug and then if you did a tricep Movement by your side you could do another tricep Movement by your side on the other day but if you did overhead on Monday do by your side on Thursday if you did buy your by your side on Monday do overhead on Thursday do I think you need to overhead triceps probably not should you maybe I don't know um we don't know everything and then if you did a bicep movement in the lengthen position maybe do another one in the length and position or do a curl it's hardest at 90° that's so easy that's so simple I mean it sounds simple to me hopefully it's simple to everyone watching so what about volume intensity well it depends and I can't tell you exactly but you know 1 to 3 set of everything I mean I can tell you one to three sets of everything right within that range I can't be more specific without seeing you knowing you intensity with intensity you should start the block slightly easier at one to two reps in reserve and finish the block at one rep in reserve or zero to one reps in reserve or zero reps and Reserve or faia whatever you prefer whatever your body likes if your body doesn't like going to zero reps and Reserve don't if you feel like you can handle it maybe you'll get some extra gains again we can only theorize the stimulating reps model the effective reps Theory we can only theorize these things based on studies done on other things now there are obviously intensity studies done but int intensity studies done on untrained individuals are not very convincing to me I am not an untrained individual I train pretty [ __ ] hard maybe it would be a different outcome for me you know so with intensity do what you like I go to faure quite often even though I know I probably don't need to I enjoy it when I'm programming if I think a client can train a bit harder I give them zero reps and Reserve sorry I meant if I think a client should train a bit harder if I think a client is unders shooting I give them zero reps and Reserve if I think they always adhere to my prescription maybe I don't write zero reps and Reserve as much so if someone's under shooting and you're a coach you need to encourage them to go to faure because their version of it isn't actually faure if that makes sense so if I write zero reps in reserve they still might have one left in the tank but if I write one R which is one left there might be two or three left so there's always a bit of Mind Games when it comes to coaching as well as well so intensity start slightly higher start higher on your compound movements train your isolation movements closer to failure train the mo movements later in your session closer to failure because those guys have fatigue present so when you do your first movement maybe you only have to go to one rep and Reserve cuz you're fresh by the time you get to biceps last probably go to faure toward the second half of the block or very close to it cuz you have fatigue presence so those sets aren't as meaningful so what have we covered we covered the split the exercises so many variations of the exercises we did intensity we did volume what else Tempo you don't need a specific Tempo control the weight control the change of Direction standardize your range of motion lift with a Tempo that you find enjoyable if you think that slower Ecentric is more fun do it if you think that moving a little faster is more fun do it if I was telling you what I thought was the most optimal I would just say you know one to two seconds in that range where it looks nice it always depends on what it looks like not however many seconds it is cuz it could look like [ __ ] and be 4 seconds and it could look really good and be 1 second so who knows so Tempo bit arbitrary not very useful just use good control use the same range of motion every set every rep and every week so that you can track Progressive overload so that's pretty much it that was training splits in 35 minutes obviously just one training split and a 5-day program is a bit harder to write and a 3-day program is definitely harder to right but that's really simple guys and I hope that was useful if you've made it this far leave a comment if you made it this far maybe check out my course because I do this for a living I teach coaches how a coach for a living maybe you want a train like me so you check out my coaching application all these things you can find in my Instagram which should be linked in my YouTube if you made it this far you're not interested in those things that's totally fine thank you for watching I really appreciate it since you guys seem to enjoy that last one I'm going to keep making these you like them I like them and my steps are less boring that is a win for everybody so for the last however many minutes of this video I'm going to talk about myself no I'm just kidding no I'm being serious I am actually going to talk about myself um so I haven't been pressing recently because my AC joints a bit [ __ ] I did it because or it happened because I was gy pinning 60 kilos to one of the the PE presses I'm I'm decently strong I was I was gim pitting 60 kilos and it was going really really well I take suitable jumps maybe I train a bit harder than I should but whatever I was doing incline Smith and I changed to the incline plate loaded Prime press and I just got way too Keen one week the first week I added it in and the second week I came back I was hurting now the first when it first happened I knew it was an AC joint injury cuz I do rehab for a living as well that's actually my formal degree my education is in rehabilitation and I knew it was my AC joint it was tender to touch it hurt in these overhead positions pressing hurt rowing hurt I knew it was the AC the few nights after I could barely move my arm I like going to bed was awful couldn't sleep on it touching was sore so bad so bad and it got a bit better and I was like okay maybe it was just a bit of a flare up maybe I'm okay let's add pressing you know like let's just keep doing our pressing we'll pull the weight back but let's just keep pressing that did not go down well so then we pulled the pressing right back you know one set instead of two pull the intensity back still not getting better rowing was hurting so if you guys don't know an AC joint injury it's just like your entire shoulder hurts like it's obviously the joint here the acromio cicular joint which is the acromium off your scapular and your clavicle which is your collar bone and they hurt where they combine but it like it just feels like hell and being out here when you have an AC joint injury is really painful so a press a row a pec deck out here is awful even a lateral raise can be pretty [ __ ] and usually for AC joint injuries the solution is just time off pressing so now a few weeks later I've had to go to two sets of pec deck on a Monday and that's it and that's all I can handle which is kind of shitty but I guess it's a nice lesson for me to sort of pump the brakes a bit I don't have to use my ego as much I don't have to show off for Instagram I can just train normally I I some of you guys might understand if you do Instagram or not but because I use my training clips for my business I always feel compelled to be impressive so it's a lot of pressure on me to like be strong look strong move well always be performing so like sometimes I will like let's say I think the suitable loading is the gy PIN plus 17 kilos I'll just do 20 cuz 20 looks better than 17 and I know it's going on Instagram and I know that is stupid but as a coach people might watch my video for a bit longer if I have 20 kilos added which is a nice big round blue plate versus If I Only Had 17 kilos added which is a yellow and and a 2.5 or whatever so sometimes I'm compelled to load more than I should and I think that probably led to the shoulder you know instead of doing 3.75 plates I just do four plates cuz it looks better you know the difference might be minimal but I always opt for the heavier one cuz it looks better so it was definitely my own fault ego lifting training too hard not thinking enough but it's a bit of a do what I say not what I do type situation for you guys um be safe have fun train hard but not too hard and I need to take some of that advice for myself so that's kind of a bit of an update on my shoulder we're about a week or two into to just only PE deck and I feel really good this range has like zero feeling Associated to it which is nice I can kind of feel it up here a little bit but by no means is it painful I would predict one block of pec deck going from a one times frequency eventually back to a two times frequency should be fine and then eventually I'll add back in the flat press and then the incline press last because the incline press I don't even like and probably is more stressful for the joint so that was a little bit of an update for you guys maybe you had notice I wasn't pressing heavy in my videos um either way that's an update