Create your own workout

Do you ever wish you could create your own workouts? Or do you wonder how your personal trainer comes up with all those exercises or knows which muscles need whipping into shape? Probably not. But, maybe you have a couple of dumbbells or have a vacation coming up and you want to look your best. A couple of crunches now and then just isn't cutting it anymore. Below are some tools to help you create your own workout. You may just want to jump to the Muscles and Exercises and get started right away, or have a read through the components of fitness, some of the principles of training you may have paid for through personal training sessions or strength training systems you may have been put through. This is a work in progress with exercises, stretches and muscles being added over time.

: Primary Components of Fitness; Secondary Components of Fitness; Other Components of Health; Training Principles; Four Elements of Good Program Design; Strength Training Systems; Muscles and Exercises

Primary Components of Fitness

Cardiorespiratory capacity or aerobic capacity is the ability for the body to in oxygen, deliver it to the cells and us it to create energy for physical work. Aerobic capacity includes how long (aerobic endurance), how hard (aerobic strength) and how fast (aerobic power). The benefits of improved aerobic capacity are decreased resting heart rate, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, improved endurance, increased stroke volume and cardiac output.
Muscular capacity is the spectrum of muscular capability. This includes muscular endurance and muscular strength and muscular power. Some of the benefits of improved muscular capactiy are increased strength, improved musclar endurance, increased basal metabolic rate, improved joint strength and improved overall posture.
Flexibility is the range of movement or amount of motino that a joint is capable of performing. Each joint has a different amount of flexibility. Some of the benefits of improved flexibility are decreased risk of injury, improved range of motion, improved bodily movements and improved posture.
Body composition is the proportion of fat free mass - muscle, bone, blood, organs and fluids- to fat mass. Some of the benefits of improved body composition are decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, improved basal metabolic rate, improved bodily function and improved BMI.

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Secondary Components of Fitness

Balance is the ability to maintain a specific body position in either a stationary of dynamic situation.
Coordination is the ability to use all body parts together ot produce smooth and fluid motion.
Agilityis the ability to change direction quickly.
Reaction Time is the time required to respond to a specific stimulus.
Speed is the ability to move rapidly.
Power is the product of strength and speed. Power is also known as explosive strength.
Mental Capability is the ability to concentrate during thexercise to improve training effects as well as the ability to relax and enjoy the psychological benefits of activity.

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Other components of health just as important as physical health

Social health is the ability to interact well with people and the environment and to have satisfying personal relationships.
Mental health is the ability to learn and grow intellectually. Life experiences as well asl more formal structures of education enhance mental health.
Emotional health is the ability to control emotions so that you feel comfortable expressing them and can express them appropriately.
Spiritual health is a belief in some unifying force. It varies from person to person but has the concept of faith at its core.

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Training Principles

FITT stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type of exercise. When planning your training program you want to consider these four areas. Frequency is how often you do the exercise, intensity is how hard your work or the level of difficulty of the exercise, time is how long you exercise each time and type is the choice of exercise. Hopefully from the table below you can choose which exercises you want to do. Modifications or possible combinations of exercises are also given for you to choose from adding to the intensity of the exercise you choose. Suggestions for frequecy with which you exercise and the amount of time you spend exercising are also given.
Individualization means that programs and modifications to programs can be made to accommodate each person's individual needs. We provide modifications to help invididualize your program to your specific needs.
Specificty means that if you want to improve a a specific aspect of your performance, you will have to train that aspect. For example if you want to work on strengthening your knees, you'll have to do exercises that strengthen the muscles around your knees, i.e. quadriceps, hamstrings, abductors, adductors
Progressive overloadsuggests that to improve you must continually challenge your fitness. If you don't continually challenge yourself you will plateau and stop making any improvements.
Recovery is the amount of time of rest between workouts. The recovery time must be enough for you to be at least as fit if not more fit that the previous workout. If you dont' have enough recovery time you will eventually beomce ill or injured.
Structural tolerance is the strengthening of tendons, ligaments etc. resulting in the ability to sustain greater stresses in training with a greater resistance to injury. Usually this is a benefit of regular exercise but sometimes specific training is needed. e.g. marathon runner may need specific strength training for areas that will feel more stress, like the ankles, hips, knees and back.
All-around developmentsuggests that people who are weel conditioned in all components of fitness are less likely to sustain injury and more likely to perform better in sport and in life. Balance is really what you're aiming for when creating a workout for yourself. We have tried to help you with this by giving you the opposing muscle group for each muscle. This way when you decide you want to work a certain muscle you will know what the opposing muscle is and will know to work that muscle as well.
Reversibility principle suggests that once training stops the body will gradually return to pre-training state. While this is frustrating you can take this as a cautionary principle implying consistency is needed with exercise to continue achieving results and sustaing the results of your hard work.
Maintenance is required once you have reached your desired goals to keep that result. It is possible to maintian your achieve fitness level with less work. To prevent adaptation to exercise you could train as little as one htird of the amount at the same intensity for up to 12 weeks.

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Four Elements of Good Program Design

Safe programs.
Effective programs delivering the results you want otherwise discouragement and disappointment will result and eventually quitting.
Efficient programs that will fit into your schedule.
Enjoyable program that you will want to do and not avoid doing. Hopefully the possibility of creating your own programs will allow for enough variety or perhaps challenge to keep it enjoyable.

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Strength Training Systems

Single Set System: one set of each exercise to fialure or near failure is performed. A single set of 8 to 12 repetitions causes significant gians in strength. About 8 to 10 exercises should be enough for a well rounded program. Before doing the single set a warm up set at 50 % of your maximum weight would be appropriate.
More sets result in better strength gains, but the extra increase in strength is not proportional to the extra effort.
Multiple Set System include all systems except the single set systme. There are increased strength gains with multiple set systems. However, it does take time and energy. Each set is done to failure unless specified.
All the sets for one exercise with rest intervals between each set before moving on to the next exercise. This maximizes the training effect on the muscles.
Light to Heavy System, also called the DeLorme system, is an example of the light to heavy method. How is works:

3 sets of 10 reps at 50% of your 10 rep maximum (RM- maximum weight you do 10 repetitions with); the second at 75% at 10 RM; the third at 100% of 10 RM. This means only the third set is to failure, the first two sets progress to that pont. Good strength gains result from this system.
More intense light to heavy programs exist.
3 to 5 reps with light weight
add 5lbs; do another set of 3-5 reps
continue this until you can only do 1 rep

This involves more repetitions with maximal or nearly maximal contractions so the gains should be higher.
Heavy to Light System starts with a set of 10 repetitions. The second and third sets have progressively lower resistance. It's like the DeLorme method in reverse.
Pyramid System puts the two previous systmes together except that you do each set to failure in the traditional pyramid plan. e.g.

1 set of 10 rep
1 set of 8 rep
1 set of 6 rep
1 set of 4 rep
1 set of 2 rep
1 set of 1 rep
1 set of 2 rep
1 set of 4 rep
1 set of 6 rep
1 set of 8 rep
1 set of 10 rep

It is tough, athletic training and it is time consuming!
Super Set System is more an exercise technique than a training system. It if effective if you want to target one muscle grou or body part fo more improvement. Super set system involves:
1. several sets of two exercises for antagonistic, opposing, muscles of the same body part. e.g. one set of bicep curls; one set of tricep extenstions repeated 3 or 4 times OR
2. one set of several exercises in succession for the same muscle grou or body part. e.g. bench press, supine dumbbell flys, incline press all for the chest
Circuit System is quite popular. Here i=you perform one set of each exercise in your routine with about 30 to 45 seconds between exercises. The entire sequence of exercises is repeated in the same order for a second set, third set etc.
With this method muscles get a rest between exercises. By the time you get back to the first exercise, the muscles have recovered.
Circuits work well for people will little time. However, this method isn't as effective for building strength. The muslce is not fatigued as thoroughly as set training. Circuit training does help to ensure balanced muscular development.
Mini circuits withint your pgoram are possible. e.g. do exercises 1, 2, 3, repeat this cycle then go on to exercises 4, 5, 6 and repeat this cycle.
Split Routine System involves dividing your total list of exercises into two or three parts. When the exercises in your training program gets to be too big then splitting the exercises and reps is necessary. Otherwise you get too tired part way through your program resulting in poorly trained muscles. This method is very popular with body builders.
One way of doing this and a simple way is to train the upper body two days a week and the lower body two other days a week. However, there are more upper body exercises than lower body exercises so it's not an equal division of time and exercises.
One option is to exercise arms, legs and abdominals as one half and the chest, shoulders and back for the other. However, arms are used quite a bit when exercising chest, shoulders and back risking overtraining the arms.
Another option is to train all the 'pulling' muscles one day with the legs and all the 'pushing muscles and the abdmonials the next day. Each of these workouts done two days a week. This way you train the biceps the same day a sthe back muscles and the triceps get worked on days you train the chest and sholders. This allows muscles to rest on their non-training days.
Split routines combine intensity and high volume but the downside is that you have to train more frequently, i.e. 4 days a week instead of just 2. This isn't the most efficient use of your time.

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Muscles and Exercises

MUSCLE	ACTION	OPPOSING MUSCLE	EXERCISES
trapezius	elevation of scapula, rotation of scapula, stabilizes scapula for deltoid action	pectoralis major	rowing, deadlift
Rhomboids	used in chin ups, used in crawl stroke in swimming, adduction of scapula (sqeezing shoulder blades together)	pectoralis major	rowing
triceps brachii		biceps brachii	bench press, shoulder(miltary)press, chest press
lastissimus dorsi	extension, inward rotation, horizontal extension, adduction of arm; pulling arms down; supporting weight i.e. chin ups, jumping rope	deltoid (anterior, medial, posterior deltoid)	rowing, lat pull down, push up
abdominal group (rectus abdominus, external obliques, internal obliques, transverse abdominus)		erector spinae	push ups
hip extensors (gluteus maximus, hamstrings)		hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris)
hamstrings (biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus)		quadriceps (recturs femoris, vastaus lateralis, vastus intermedius, vastus medialus)	squats, leg curls, deadlift
abductors (gluteus medius, gluteus minimus)		adductors (adductor brevis, gracilis, adductor magnus, adductor longus)
tibialis anterior		gastrocinemius, soleus
extensor digitorum longus		gastrocnemius, soleus
pectoralis major	flexion, extneions, inward rotation of arm; abduction, adduction of upper arm	trapezius, rhomboids	bench press, chest press, chest fly, push up
biceps brachii	flexion at elbow	triceps brachii	arm(bicep) curls
deltoids (anterior, medial, posterior deltoid)	abduction of arm; lifting arm ( anterior deltoid- lifting up in front, medial deltoid-lifing up to the side, posterior deltoid- lifting arm back)	latissimus dorsi	shoulder(military)press, chest press, chest fly, push up
erector spinae		abdominal group (rectus abdominus, external obliques, internal obliques, transverse abdominus)	dealdlift
hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris)		hip extensors (gluteus maximus, hamstrings)	push up
quadriceps (rectus femoris, vastaus lateralis, vastus intermedius, vastus medialus)		hamstrings (biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus)	squats, leg extensions, deadlift
adductors (adductor brevis, gracilis, adductor magnus, adductor longus)		abductors (gluteus medius, gluteus minimus)
gastrocnemius		tiblialis anterior, extensor digitorum longus
soleus		tibialis anterior, extensor digitorum longus

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