Training Principles 101 - How to maximise your training in the gym

Are you stuck on not knowing how to train in the gym? This guide will outline the fundamental principles when it comes to effective weight training in the gym. I will explain each principle in detail, with the goal of increasing understanding on how to best train for your goals.

Principle #1 – Consistency

Consistency is key when training. It is the most important factor that will get you to the results that you want. If you’re not consistent, you won’t progress very far. This includes not only your training in the gym but also applies to your nutrition, lifestyle, and recovery. An average program completed consistently will beat the best program in the world that isn’t completed on a consistent basis. Being consistent with your training means that gains that you make in a session don’t go to waste, and you can keep building up and making further gains on top. For example, if you are training once a fortnight, the gains that you make from that session are very unlikely to be very significant or even be able to be maintained. If you are training 3 times per week, every week, you are far more likely to see results.

Getting consistent in the gym can sometimes take a lot of motivation and/or discipline initially, until you form the habit of getting into the gym. This is where a coach can come in handy to hold you accountable. Being consistent can also mean finding a training style that you personally enjoy, and can sustain. Some people love the gym and enjoy going 6 times per week doing bodybuilding type of training. Some may prefer to train only twice per week, focusing on building athleticism and injury proofing for their sport, and others may simply want health benefits from training.

Principle #2 – Intensity

I will often see people not training at a high enough intensity in the gym. When doing a set, they stop the set too early, or maybe they are using too light of a weight. For example, I often see people complete sets that they could have done 5+ more reps on. Ideally, we want to train closer to failure if we are training to maximize muscle growth. This would look more like between 1-3 reps left in the tank in a given set. In the context of muscle growth, the rep ranges you would be working in should be between 6-12, with 3-4 working sets. Keep in mind that this is a general guideline – you can make gains in a variety of different rep ranges.

Intensity in regard to strength is a little different. Intensity in a strength context, put simply, is the amount of weight you are lifting. This can be further explained by the % of 1RM (1 Repetition Maximum=the maximum amount of weight you can lift for 1 rep). An example of this in a training context is completing a set at 80% of your 1RM for 8 reps. With this in mind, you would do 2-6 reps in a given set, with 3-6 sets of a given exercise. Intensity can also be measured a bit more subjectively through a system called RPE, or rating of perceived exertion. This is generally a 0-10 scale where 10 is absolute maximum effort, and 0 is no exertion (rest). The number of the scale also reflects the number of reps that are left in the tank on a given set. For example, an RPE of 8 would mean that there are 2 reps left in the tank. This is something that you will take into account when selecting a weight for an exercise.

Principle #3 – Volume

Volume put simply, is how much work you are doing in the gym. This can be measured by the total number of sets and reps in one session or per muscle group, or how many sets and reps you have done over the training week or training cycle. Volume is an important factor when it comes to muscle growth. A good amount to aim for would be between 10-20 sets per muscle group per week, depending on training experience, goals and other factors such as overall stress, nutrition and sleep. I wouldn’t go more than 20 sets per muscle group per week, as the quality of your working sets will start to decrease, and you’ll begin to get less ROI (return on investment) for the work you are putting in. This is also known as ‘junk volume’. As an example for a specific muscle group e.g. chest, over a training week, this might look like; 12 sets over the week, with 6 sets per training session, in an upper/lower split, where you are training upper body twice.

Principle #4 – Frequency

Frequency can refer to two different things – how many sessions you do in a week, or how many times you are training a particular movement or muscle. For most people, my recommended session frequency per week is 2-4+ sessions, and largely depends on your goals, training experience and time availability, with 2 times per week as a bare minimum to achieve good results. In regards to strength of a specific lift, such as the bench press, squat or deadlift, frequency matters as well. The more you complete a movement, the more efficient that movement becomes, and this will in turn improve your strength in that movement.

In terms of how many times per week to train each muscle group for muscle growth; it does vary between muscle groups, as certain muscles may recover quicker than others. As a general recommendation, training each muscle group at least 2x per week will ensure you’re getting muscle protein synthesis (the muscle building process) twice per week for each muscle group instead of the 1x per week that you would get from a once per week body part split i.e., chest and tris once per week only. Your muscles generally do not need an entire week to fully recover. This is why I recommend a 3x per week full body split for a lot of people. An 4x per week upper/lower split also works, or a 6x per week push pull legs split for more advanced lifters.

Principle #5 – Tempo

Tempo refers to the speed at which you complete a rep. The tempo you choose largely depends on your goal with each exercise, but most people will benefit from a slower, controlled tempo as this allows for better control over the movement, and generally cleans up a lot of technique faults. If you are completing the movement too quickly and use too much momentum, you’re probably not going to get the most out of the movement in the context of building muscle and strength. A slower, controlled tempo is generally superior for muscle growth. It increases the time that your muscles are under tension – a concept called time under tension. An example tempo for a squat might be 2-1-1-0. This means a 2 second descent, 1 second pause at the bottom, and 1 second up, and 0 seconds at the top, starting the rep again straight away.

Principle #6 – Rest periods

Rest periods are another factor that are commonly overlooked in the gym. The amount of rest you take will vary depending on what outcome you are trying to achieve. For example, If you are targeting improvement in muscular endurance, lower rest periods are best. Though if you are trying to build muscle and in particular gain strength, you want to have sufficient enough time between sets in order to properly recover for the next set. This ensures a high quality of each working set, which will enhance your gains in the long term.

When training for hypertrophy (muscle growth), I would recommend taking at least 90 seconds to 2 minutes rest on compound lifts such as the squat, Romanian deadlift & bench press, and 45-60 seconds rest on your isolation/supplementary movements such as your bicep curls, calf raises & planks. If we’re training for strength, having between 2-5 mins between sets on compound lifts is recommended, as strength training is more taxing on your nervous system and therefore you need more time to recover. Beginner lifters can get away with shorter rest times, as the absolute intensity that they are training isn’t as high as a more experienced lifter.

Principle #7 – Progressive overload

Progressive overload is a must if you are looking to make continual gains in the gym. This is because our body adapts to the training we give it. Once the body adapts to the current training, we need to further challenge the body in order to continue to make gains. This principle of weight training is called progressive overload. There are a few different ways that you can apply the principle of progressive overload:

• Increase the weight
• Increase the number of reps
• Increase the number of sets
• Decrease the rest periods
• Increase time under tension (completing reps slower)
• Improving technique, control & efficiency of the lift
• Increase training frequency (number of times you train per week)
• Increase range of motion
• Lifting with more speed and acceleration

Principle #8 – Rest days

Depending on your experience, goals, lifestyle, and intensity/volume of training, you might take anywhere between 1-4 days of either complete or active rest per week in total. Active rest meaning something lower intensity that will not impede, and improve recovery, such as walking or stretching. Strategic resting takes advantage of the work/recovery cycle, which is depicted below: As a rule of thumb, aim to have at least 48 hours of rest between training the same muscle group. For example, if you’ve trained your chest on Monday, you’ll want to allow enough recovery to train the muscle optimally again. This means you would wait until Wednesday, or even Thursday (72 hours) before training the chest again. This ties into the work/recovery cycle which I will go through below.

As you can see in the image, after a training stimulus (workout), there is a period of time where your performance drops and you are recovering from fatigue. This is where rest comes in. After around 48-72 hours after the training stimulus, the body ‘super compensates’, and your training performance increases temporarily. We want to take advantage of this supercompensation and apply another training stimulus (workout) to take advantage of the temporary increase in performance.

This will ideally result in you lifting more weight or getting more reps out in a given session, thereby improving your volume and intensity for that session. If we wait too long until the next session, your body will have already returned to the baseline level it was at before. Following the latest training stimulus, the cycle then continues on, with the period of fatigue and recovery, and then the period of supercompensation. This way, we can keep building upon the previous cycle continuously. Some examples of when to take rest days: You are training with a full body split 3x per week, Mon/Wed/Fri, and resting on Tue/Thu/Sat/Sun, for 4 days of rest. You are training 4x per week using an upper/lower split on Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri, and resting on Wed/Sat/Sun. You use a push pull legs split and do 3 days on, 1 day off, e.g. Mon/Tues/Wed training, Thursday rest, Fri/Sat/Sun training, Monday rest.

Final words I hope you now have a greater understanding of the training principles that underpin a successful training program, and are well on the way to making some awesome progress in the gym. Applying all of the above principles will ensure that you are maximising your time in the gym. If you need help with putting this all together in a structured, individualised program, send me a message, and I will be more than happy to have a chat with you and create a targeted game plan for you to help you achieve your goals.