How to make a workout plan for the gym: exercises, sets, order and session length

Workout plan key numbers

A gym workout plan describes one week: how many days you train, which exercises you do, how many sets and reps, how close to failure and how long you rest.

When to make your own plan and when to use a ready one

Take a ready plan for your first one, or write the simplest possible: 3 full body workouts a week with 5-6 exercises each. Your own plan makes sense when a ready one doesn't fit your days, your equipment or the muscle you want to bring up; results come from sets, effort and progression, not from who wrote the plan. The ACSM 2026 position stand ranks a plan that fits the person, so that they keep training regularly, above the exact numbers from earlier guidelines.

Treat a plan from an AI chat as a draft: the authors of Washif et al. 2024 concluded that such plans probably need refining before use.

How to make a workout plan step by step

You build a workout plan from the big decisions to the details: first the number of days, then exercises and sets, and finally reps, rest and 8 weeks of progression.

1. Pick a split for the days you will actually train: full body for 2-3 days, and after the first few months also upper/lower plus a full body day for 3 days; upper/lower or push/pull for 4 days; push pull legs for 5-6 days (workout splits). For strength, do your main lift twice a week, and deadlift once heavy and once lighter (training frequency).
2. For each workout, pick 3-4 compound exercises from different movement patterns (table below) and 1-3 isolation exercises: for the side delts and hamstrings, which presses and squats train too little, and for arms and calves when they are a priority or time allows.
3. Count weekly sets per muscle group: 4-10 for a regular one, 10-20 for the one you want to bring up; 2-4 sets per exercise and at most about 10 per muscle group in one workout (how many sets per workout). Count a set where the muscle only assists as half (how to count sets); the weekly volume calculator checks the week for you.
4. Set reps and reserve: barbell lifts 6-10, other compound exercises 8-12, isolation 10-15, lateral raises 12-20, and RIR 2 in every exercise to start.
5. Set the order and rest: the heavy compound lift goes first, after warm-up sets (for a working weight up to about 40 kg, the empty bar and 1 set; at about 100 kg, 4-5 sets); rest 2-3 min in heavy compound lifts, about 2 min in other compound lifts and 60-90 s in isolation (rest between sets).
6. Write out 8 weeks: week 1 with 1 more rep in reserve so you can find your weights, then double progression, and if you've trained for more than a year, a lighter week 8 (deload); work out your starting weight with the 1RM calculator, and the next block is described under mesocycles.

Keep a wide rep range in dumbbell isolation work: the next pair of dumbbells is usually 2-2.5 kg heavier, and going from 8 kg to 10 kg is already 25%.

Choose your split by convenience: with the same number of sets, split and full body training gave the same strength and muscle gains in a meta-analysis of 14 studies (Ramos-Campo et al. 2024). Every extra weekly set adds less than the one before (Pelland et al. 2025), so 4-10 sets are enough for a muscle to grow, and 10-20 go to the one you want to bring up faster. Early on you usually have more reps left than you think (how to estimate RIR), so RIR 2 in the first weeks is a safe margin for learning technique.

How many exercises per muscle group and per workout

One or two exercises per muscle group in a workout are usually enough, and 5-7 for the whole workout; 3-4 exercises per muscle group only make sense in a split where the muscle gets a full day once a week.

Several different exercises for a muscle group over the week spread the work across the whole muscle: in a 9-week study, different exercises for the same muscle produced growth at every measured site (Costa et al. 2021). The thighs show it best. After 10 weeks of squats alone, the hamstrings did not change, while the glutes and adductors grew (Kubo et al. 2019). A squat-based leg plan therefore needs a hamstring exercise: the leg curl (the seated version grew them by 14%, the lying one by 9%, Maeo et al. 2021) or the Romanian deadlift, and in a 3-day plan ideally both on different days. Arms also grow from presses and pulls alone: in a review of 23 studies, adding isolation work gave no extra gains (Gentil et al. 2017), so when time is short you cut arm isolation, not leg curls.

Starter exercises by movement pattern

For each movement pattern you take one main exercise, and a substitute when the station is taken or the movement doesn't suit you.

According to the ACSM 2026 position stand, 4 movements cover the major muscle groups: a press and a pull for the upper body, and a squat or leg press and a hip hinge for the lower body. For the upper body you can do a horizontal and a vertical press and pull, which makes 6 movements, either in one workout or spread over the week.

Exercise order in a workout

Start the workout with the exercise in which you most want to gain strength, usually a heavy compound lift, and put isolation work at the end. Strength improves most in exercises done early in the workout, while for muscle growth the order made no difference in a meta-analysis of 11 studies (Nunes et al. 2021). You often read that big muscles come first and small ones after. A review of the research advises otherwise: first whatever is the priority for your goal, regardless of muscle size (Simão et al. 2012).

1. Do the heavy free-weight compound lift first, after your warm-up sets.
2. Train the muscle you want to bring up at the start of the workout, even a small one; but put a small muscle first only on a day when it doesn't assist the heavy lifts, e.g. biceps first on leg day, not on a day with rows (muscle priority).
3. Leave isolation and abs for the end; pair two exercises for opposing muscles into a superset.
4. Put isolation before a compound exercise for the same muscle only when heavy loads hurt you, e.g. a painful joint: pre-exhaustion doesn't make the big muscle work harder, it lowers the weight in the compound lift.

An example upper day for intermediates: Barbell Bench Press, Barbell Bent Over Row, Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press, Cable Lat Pulldown, Cable Middle Chest Fly, and to finish an arm superset: Cable Triceps Pushdown and Dumbbell Biceps Curl alternated.

How long should a gym workout be

A gym workout lasts as long as its sets, rest and warm-up: 15-20 working sets with about 2 minutes of rest take 40-55 minutes, and 50-70 minutes with the warm-up and moving between stations. You can work out the time before your first session:

• a set lasts the number of reps times the length of one rep from the tempo: 8 reps at a 3010 tempo are 8 × 4 s = 32 s, so 4 × 8 with 90 s rest is 4 × (32 s + 90 s) = 488 s, about 8 minutes per exercise;
• 6 exercises of 3 sets are 18 sets; with a set of about 40 s and 2 minutes of rest that is 18 × 160 s = 48 minutes, and about an hour with the warm-up and moving between stations.

You can shorten a workout without losing sets by doing warm-up sets in the exercise itself instead of a general warm-up, and by pairing exercises for different muscles into supersets (but not barbell squats or bench presses; Iversen et al. 2021). In a meta-analysis of 19 studies, supersets shortened workouts at the same volume with similar strength and muscle gains, though they were more fatiguing (Zhang et al. 2025). For example, 2 exercises of 3 sets with 60 s rest take about 8 minutes as a superset instead of 11.

Research sets no upper limit on workout length. Add 10-15 minutes for the warm-up and moving between stations to the sum of sets and rest; in SmartWorkout logs, workouts last clearly longer than that sum (box below).

Sample 3-day full body workout plan

The example below is a full body plan for 3 days a week for beginners; every day has legs, a press and a pull:

• Day A: Barbell Squat, Dumbbell Bench Press, Cable Lat Pulldown, Seated Leg Curl, Dumbbell Lateral Raise, Dumbbell Biceps Curl.
• Day B: Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift, Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press, Seated Cable Row, Dumbbell Goblet Squat, Cable Triceps Pushdown, Dumbbell Biceps Curl.
• Day C: Leg Press, Machine Chest Press, Chest Supported Machine Row, Seated Leg Curl, Machine Reverse Flyes, Dumbbell Biceps Curl, Calf Leg Press.

The table shows day A in week 2.

That is 15 working sets and about 40 minutes of sets and rest. In our beginner plans, week 1 is at RIR 3 because you are finding your weights in it, and the following weeks are at RIR 2. The weight goes up with double progression:

The plan works if after 8 weeks the weights in your main lifts are higher at the same RIR. If they have stalled in most exercises, first add sets for muscle groups that get only 4-10 sets a week (progressive overload). The 3-day full body plan lays out all 8 weeks, and for 4 days use the 4-day upper/lower plan.

How to read a workout plan: 4 × 8, RIR 2, tempo 3010

“4 × 8, RIR 2, tempo 3010, rest 90 s” means: 4 sets of 8 reps, each ended with 2 reps in reserve, lowering for 3 seconds, lifting for 1 second without pauses, and 90 seconds of rest after every set.

The same row in the text format that AI chats and text plan import understand looks like this: - Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 4x8 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 90. The plan fragment at the end of the page shows a whole day in this format.

Ready plan vs your own plan vs AI plan

A ready plan, your own plan, a plan from an AI generator and a plan from a chat each need a different check before your first workout.

Common workout plan mistakes

1. Five exercises for one muscle group. 5 chest exercises of 4 sets each are 20 sets in one workout, twice the roughly 10 we recommend per muscle group per session (how many sets per workout). Keep 1-2 exercises and move the remaining sets to a second workout in the week.
2. Failure on every set. Training to failure doesn't build more strength or muscle (ACSM 2026 position stand). End your sets at RIR 1-3, and go to failure at most on the last set of a machine, cable or dumbbell isolation exercise, never in barbell squats and bench presses (training to failure).
3. A plan without progression. The same weights for 2 months mean the plan has stalled. Log the weight and reps of every set and add weight by the rule in your plan (double progression).
4. A chat plan taken without a check. In one study, the chatbot recommended training each muscle group twice a week, yet the plan it wrote trained each one only once; coaches rated the plans higher when the prompt was more detailed (Havers et al. 2025). Before you start, count the days and the sets for each muscle group, and ask for what's missing in a follow-up prompt.

What the research says

Research on building a plan compares weekly splits, exercise selection and order, and AI-generated plans.

How many exercises per muscle group work best is unknown: we know of no study comparing 1, 2 and 3 exercises at the same number of sets, and the ACSM 2026 position stand rates the data on exercise variety as insufficient.

What SmartWorkout logs show

A typical workout in our logs, mostly from lifters in Poland, has as many working sets as the calculation in the session length section (18), yet lasts almost half an hour longer than its 48 minutes of sets and rest. Logged time runs from starting to finishing the workout, so it also includes the warm-up, longer breaks, waiting for a station, and workouts ended in the app some time after you actually finished; plan your time with a margin. Every number is based on at least 50 people.

How to make a plan in SmartWorkout

You can set up a plan in SmartWorkout in four ways: take a ready plan, build your own in the plan creator, generate a plan with AI or paste a plan from a chat.

1. Copy a plan from a chat or the fragment below as text.
2. On the Workout tab, next to “My Plans”, tap “See All”.
3. Tap “+” and choose “Import plan”.
4. Paste the text and tap “Create plan”.
5. If the app didn't match an exercise, pick the right one and tap “Open editable preview”.
6. Check the days, sets and rest in the preview and tap “Save”.

From version 5.2, you create, generate or import a new plan in Workout > Plans.

The plan fragment is day A from the sample plan above. Import costs 10 AI credits, so the welcome credits cover it; an AI plan on the default model costs the same.

DAY: Full Body A- Barbell Squat | WU 2x5 | 3x6-10 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 150- Dumbbell Bench Press | 3x8-12 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 120- Cable Lat Pulldown | 3x8-12 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3011 | REST 120- Seated Leg Curl | 2x10-15 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 90- Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 2x12-20 RIR 2 | TEMPO 2011 | REST 60- Dumbbell Biceps Curl | 2x10-15 RIR 2 | TEMPO 3010 | REST 60

All our free plans follow the same rules: 8 weeks, RIR and a calibration week to start. The help article on importing a plan from text explains how import works and which format the AI reads most reliably.

With Premium, the creator shows the “Weekly Volume Breakdown” below the blocks: each muscle group's sets in every week of the plan against the zones. During the plan, Premium tells you what to do in your next workout: add a rep, add weight or stay at your current target.