4 More Ways to Structure Your Strength Workout

Looking for ways to structure your strength workout? Restructuring provides great benefits, plus, it’s always fun to switch things up. Find out new ways to structure your next workout!

4 More Ways to Structure Your Strength Workout

WELCOME to the Capable & Strong Series! 

This series is all about strength training. We will be chatting about things from reasons why women should lift to suggested supplements to building a strong body and mind! And you can expect strength training workouts! 

Heeeyyyy! Good Morning and Happy Monday!

How the heck are you?! It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I’ve missed the blog only posting once a week! I’m thinking things have settled down and I’ll be back in action!

Today, we are chatting 4 ways to structure your strength workout. One of THE most popular posts on the blog is my 3 Ways to Structure Your Next Strength Training Workout. Because there are obviously more than 3 ways to structure a workout, I thought a follow up was in order!

On the blog, we’ve talked Superset Workouts, Pyramid Workouts and Interval Workouts. We’ve done AMRAP‘s, Tabata‘s, Circuit‘s and Stacked Workouts. Let’s chat a few more ways to structure a strength workout, shall we?!

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SPLITS

Split days break up body part/muscle group training on specific days. The benefit of this type of system is that you can really focus in on an area of the body. There are a few different ways you can structure split days:

• 2 Day Split: Upper Body & Lower Body
• 3 Day Split: Back & Biceps; Legs; Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
• 4 Day Split: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Legs (2 days); Back & Biceps
• 5 Day Split: Legs; Back; Chest; Shoulders; Arms

Keep in mind, those are just sample days. Personally, I like doing a split days when I’m in a strength training phase. I like to structure my days around lifts AND areas that I feel need more work – which tends to be Back Day or Leg Day.

Sample Workout: Back Focused Hypertrophy Workout

MULTI-SETS

Multi-set systems are great for workouters of all levels. Supersets would fall into this system, along with tri-set or quad set. Really, identical to a superset, save for the addition for more moves. I love this type of workout when I’m somewhat short on time and want a good bang for my buck at the gym.

This could look like:

8 – 10 reps / 3 sets (move between each move as quickly as possible without rest)

• Barbell Bent Row
• Push-ups
• Lat Pulldown

Sample Workout: Kettlebell Tri-Set Workout

LOADS

Vertical Loading is a system in which you move vertically down your planned workout. This means, if you have 5 exercises in your workout for the day, let’s say: back squat, hamstring curls, stationary lunges, calf raises and bicycle crunches. You’ll complete your RX reps of your back squat, move to hamstring curls and on down the list until you get through 1 set.

Sample Workout: Bottoms Up Booty Workout

Horizontal Loading is a system in which you move horizontally through your planned workout. Let’s take the moves above and say your RX reps are 8 of each move. You’d complete all reps of your back squat before moving on to your hamstring curl.

A Few Notes

• Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Personally, I like a good push/pull split for upper body day (doing a superset with pushing and pulling exercises). Full body strength days are fun as well! The important thing is to try out a structure and see if it works for you.
• In terms of switching up the structure or type of workout: again, feel out how your body is responding. If you find a structure you love, aim to switch it up around the 6 – 8 week mark. This helps keep your body guessing and keeps you from hitting a plateau. If you are interested in finding out more on the best time to switch, join The Burpees for Breakfast Squad. This is the topic of tonight’s Squad Talk.
• For more details on the right number of reps/sets/volume, check out the original post on how to structure your strength workout.

My Style

So, I like to do a hybrid workout on most days. Like I said above, I tend to structure my workout based on a lift or area I’d like to work. I typically couple back day with heavy deadlifts and leg day with heavier squats. In the past few months, because I’d been working on pull-ups and heavy deads, I’d aim for those workouts twice a week. My favorite way structure a strength workout is:

• big lift (squats, deads, bench/pull-ups), followed by EITHER:
• 4 – 5 move vertical load focusing on muscle group (back, legs, chest, etc.), OR
• 2 – 3-4 move vertical load focusing on area (lower body, upper body)

I’ll be sharing a couple workouts with this structure in the next couple weeks!

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…

How was your weekend!? Friday, I helped out my mom with her website for a couple hours. It turned sunny in the afternoon after DAYS of rain, so Oscar and I took advantage of it went on a couple longer walks. Saturday was a workout, client consult, brunch and a freaking awesome afternoon of being productive with business stuff! It felt so good! In the evening, I did set up at church and got all the grocery shopping done! Sunday was check in at church, a few errands with The Hubs, a walk or two with Oscar, food prep and a little ice cream.

It was a solid weekend and I’m ready to take on the week!

SO, TELL ME:

Do you have any favorite ways to structure your strength workout?
What did you do this weekend?!

XOXO,
JEN

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