How to program workouts: how many days and sets should you start with?

If you've run a 3-day full body plan for a few months, you start to wonder when to change it. This article is for lifters with about a year of training who want to build their own strength routine. We'll cover how to program workouts in four steps and grow a 3-day full body plan into a 4-day upper/lower split.

✏️ How do you program workouts, and in what order?

Decide four things in this order: training days, split, weekly sets per muscle group, and the number and order of exercises. Each choice narrows the next one, so the order matters. This article covers strength routines only. It skips habit tips like blocking time on your calendar, and it skips cardio plans.

A strength routine means a plan that fixes which exercises you do, for how many sets and reps, on how many days a week. Put simply, it's the thinking you finish before you walk into the gym. The table below shows the starting points this article uses for a first routine.

One note: sources disagree on these ranges. Treat them as first values, then adjust them with your log once you've started.

📅 How many days a week should you train?

If you're choosing for the first time, 3 days a week is a solid place to start. A few of the English-language beginner guides we looked at suggest 2-3 days, and a 3-day full body plan shows up often. There's no single right answer. The right number of days is the number you can hit for a whole month.

Say you plan five days and drop to three after two weeks. Your log now has gaps.

Say you plan three and hit all three for a month. Your log stays continuous. A continuous log lets you compare with last time, and comparing is how you set the next target. So pick days that fit your schedule.

Let's say you pick Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There's a rest day between each workout, so the same lift always has at least one day off in between. If you want a weekend session later, add it after three days have held for a month.

🔀 Should you pick full body or an upper/lower split?

With 2-3 days a week, full body is the easier fit. With 4 days, an upper/lower split fits better. A full body workout means training the big areas, like legs, chest and back, in every session. An upper/lower split means you divide your week into upper body days and lower body days.

Here are the two side by side.

You might be thinking, "So which one is better?" We won't call a winner here. Choose the one that fits the days you can actually keep. If that's three days or fewer, start with full body.

Push/pull/legs, which splits the week into three kinds of days, has its own article: push pull legs routine. Here we'll follow one path from start to finish: begin with full body and grow into upper/lower.

🔢 How many sets per muscle group do you need each week?

Start with 8-12 sets per muscle group per week. Once that feels easy, try 12-18. Weekly sets means the total number of sets you do for one muscle group across the whole week. Put simply, it's a weekly sum per area.

These ranges come from one training site we found, builtwithscience. Other sources draw the line wider or narrower. So treat the numbers as first values and let your own log adjust them.

Counting is simple. Three sets of bench press count as 3 chest sets, barbell rows as 3 back sets, and squats as 3 leg sets. Compound lifts work several areas at once, but this article counts each lift toward its main area only. One counting rule lets you compare week to week.

The same source says to spread a big week, like 16 sets, over at least two days. It suggests keeping one area to about 10 sets or fewer per session.

Take a 12-set chest week as an example. Doing all 12 in one day gets rough by the end. Do 6 on Monday and 6 on Thursday instead. That needs a split that trains chest twice a week.

📋 How many exercises per workout, and in what order?

Start with 4-6 exercises, and put the big compound lifts first. A compound lift means an exercise that moves several joints at once, like a squat or a bench press. An accessory lift means an exercise that focuses on one area, like a leg curl or a lat pulldown.

Putting compound lifts first is a common habit. We don't treat it as a hard rule. Still, if you place your heaviest lift early when you feel best, its weight and reps are easier to compare over time. Once you pick an order, avoid changing it often. A different order makes even the same lift harder to compare.

Lower body days can run shorter, since the big lifts are heavy. 2-4 exercises is plenty.

Take a workout of squat, bench press, barbell row, then hanging leg raise. The biggest, heaviest lift comes first and the core lift comes last. Those four lifts are the full body plan in the example below.

More exercises don't make a better routine. A first routine can look a little light, as long as you can finish every set. Finished sets give you something to base the next target on. If you're torn between 5x5 and 3x8, see 5x5 vs 3x8.

🗓️ How do you grow a 3-day full body plan into a 4-day upper/lower split?

Keep the squat, bench press and barbell row names and logs as they are. Change the days and the grouping, and add a few lifts. Here's the starting point, a 3-day full body plan on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. All three days look the same.

That's 11 sets per workout and 33 per week. Chest, back and legs each get 3 sets on 3 days, so 9 sets a week. The 6 core sets are listed separately in the comparison table below.

Now we grow it into a 4-day upper/lower split on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Upper days get one more chest lift and one more back lift. The lower body splits into two days.

Here's how the weekly sets change when you put the two plans side by side.

Chest and back gain 3 sets each, and each upper day carries 6 sets per area. You train them twice a week, so nothing gets piled into one day. Squats grow to 4 sets, and deadlifts and leg presses are new. Core drops from 6 sets a week to the 2 sets of hanging leg raises on Friday. If you miss the extra core work, add 2 sets at the end of Monday or Thursday.

Start new lifts light. Let's say you open the deadlift at 80kg (176 lb) for 5 reps and 3 sets. Volume means weight x reps x sets added up. That's 80kg x 15 reps, so 1,200kg (2,646 lb). If you finish every set, go up 2.5kg (5.5 lb) next week to 82.5kg (182 lb).

On Monday, the bench press and barbell row continue from your last full body numbers. Thursday uses the 10-12 rep range, so start lighter than Monday and continue Thursday's log from Thursday to Thursday.

For what to add and when, reuse the rules in our progressive overload guide. The squat now has a fourth set. Start it at the same weight as the first three. It's fine if the last set comes up short at first. That number becomes the starting point for the next target.

📈 When should you switch splits, and how does your log tell you?

Switch when all three of these are true. We chose these criteria ourselves. A session means one workout.

One note: this applies only when your first lifts are still going up on schedule. If those stalled for 3 sessions in a row too, the plateau steps below come first.

Suppose you reach week 9 of full body. You missed 2 sets of 10 hanging leg raises for 3 sessions in a row. Over those same 3 sessions, your workouts ran past the 60 minutes you planned. Squat and bench kept climbing on schedule, and your schedule allows 4 days next month.

We read that as a signal to split the days. An upper/lower split does exactly that.

If your weight stopped going up, don't change the split first. If you missed the same weight for 3 sessions in a row, start with our plateau guide. Adjust your jump size and target reps in that order. Changing the split is the next move if that still doesn't work.

None of this works without set-by-set numbers. "I think my last lift kept falling apart" can't tell you whether it happened 3 sessions in a row. Our workout log guide has a template for writing those numbers down.

🔁 What do you change first when a routine stalls?

Change the smallest thing first, and change one thing at a time. The order is jump size and target reps, then set count, then split, then swapping lifts. If you fix a small problem with a big change, you lose track of where your numbers moved.

When you change set counts, add only 2-3 weekly sets per area at a time. That range is this article's starting point. Suppose your back sits at 12 sets a week, and you hit every target on the lat pulldown for 4 weeks. Add one set to each pulldown, on Monday and on Thursday, to make 14 sets a week. Check your log again 4 weeks later to decide whether to add more.

Swapping a lift comes last. A new lift breaks the link to your old numbers, so you can't compare. If you must swap, keep logging the original lift on its own line.

After your next workout, count the weekly sets for each area in your plan.

📱 How does Progro make this easier?

Progro is a workout log app built for progressive overload. You can set up the upper/lower plan above as four routines: Upper A, Lower A, Upper B and Lower B. The free plan gives you up to 2 routines. Three or more routines need Pro, a one-time purchase.

When you start a routine, each set has a target weight and reps filled in. You change the number to what you actually did and check it off. You don't have to memorize how many reps you did last time.

During a workout, tap the History button on a lift to see how many times you've trained it, your top weight and every past session. After the workout, it compares last time and today set by set for each lift. You can see right away whether the last set came up shorter than last time.

There's no sign-up, no ads, and your logs stay on your phone.

Get Progro on the App Store