A training plan is more than a list of exercises with sets and repetitions after them. It answers a very concrete question: which stimuli does this body have to receive over the coming weeks so that it changes in the desired direction? If you approach that systematically, you no longer train by feel. In this article we walk the path that trainers-to-be also learn during their training: from the current-state analysis through the load parameters and exercise selection to periodisation across several weeks. At the end there is a sample week to adopt.
Steps 1 and 2: current-state analysis and goal setting
Training planning is a cycle: plan, implement, review, improve — and plan again. The cycle does not start with exercise selection but with two stocktakings.
The current-state analysis
Everything that influences your capacity to handle load is recorded: health complaints and clinical conditions, injuries, but also work, sleep and stress. Added to that are two sober numbers: how many training sessions per week are realistic, and how much pure training time is available per session — without changing and showering. With existing complaints or chronic illnesses, a medical assessment belongs before the start.
Goal setting
After that the main goal is defined — one, not five. "Get fitter" is no use, because progress cannot be measured. "In twelve weeks, run 45 minutes at a stretch in the base range", on the other hand, works. Motivation matters too: regularity decides success, and you only do regularly what you enjoy. For getting started, the article on foundational training helps.
Step 3: setting the load parameters
Load parameters are the adjusting screws with which you steer every session and make it comparable. In the training they are called parameters of training management:
- Training frequency: number of sessions per week.
- Stimulus intensity: the strength of the stimulus — in strength training the weight and movement speed, in endurance training usually heart rate, pace or subjective effort.
- Load volume: all stimuli of a session added together, that is, kilometres run or sets and repetitions.
- Stimulus duration: the period of time over which you train.
- Stimulus density: the time relationship between effort and recovery within the session, that is, the length of the breaks.
- Overall load: recorded subjectively with the Foster scale, on which you rate the session half an hour afterwards from 1 (very low) to 10 (hardest training).
You note these six values for every session. Only then does "I went training" become information you can do something with in four weeks' time.
Step 4: selecting exercises and ordering them correctly
The order within a session is not a matter of taste. Content that is demanding on coordination — technique, speed, coordination — needs a rested body and comes first. Strength training follows, and endurance training comes last. Ambitious trainees work on only one performance component per session anyway, because endurance training afterwards clearly reduces the effect of the strength training. How to fit both into one week nevertheless is shown in the article on hybrid training.
Within strength training the rule is: the large muscle groups first. The academy orders the exercises by joint — hip joint, knee joint, lumbar spine, shoulder joint, elbow joint, cervical spine, ankle joint, wrist. If you train the whole body, you work through this list from top to bottom. Whether a full-body or split plan fits better depends above all on the time you have available; for one to three sessions per week, full-body is the obvious choice.
A note on variation: a new plan is not automatically a new stimulus. Switching from the chest press to the bench press changes the equipment but hardly anything muscularly. Switching from the shoulder press to lateral raises stays with the same type of equipment and yet changes the loading considerably. Variation therefore means changing the stimulus, not the scenery.
Step 5: planning progression
Unchanging stimuli eventually stop leading to adaptations — that is the core of supercompensation. For increasing the load there is a recommended order: first training frequency (three instead of two sessions), then load density (shorter breaks), then load volume (30 instead of 20 minutes) and only at the end load intensity (25 instead of 20 kilograms).
In strength training, progression runs via time under tension. You train slowly and in a controlled way to momentary muscular failure; the aim is a time under tension of between 30 and 180 seconds, and for the largest motor units the target range is roughly 60 to 100 seconds. If you achieve a longer time under tension in the next session, recovery was adequate. Once you have reached the upper end, you increase the resistance by the smallest possible increment — never at the expense of movement quality.
Step 6: checking and adjusting
Planning means adjusting what has already been planned again and again. That is why review points belong firmly in the plan: the same exercise, the same execution, the same measuring point — and then the comparison. If progress stagnates, it is usually not down to too small a stimulus but to too little recovery. Adaptations largely take place during the recovery phase, which is why recovery is a plannable part of training and not what is left over. A deliberately reduced deload week often brings more than another hard block.
Periodisation: the plan across several weeks
Developing all areas to the maximum at the same time does not work. That is why the work is done in blocks with focal points. For endurance, the academy follows the 3-component model with four-week blocks:
- The Ausschöpfung component (base endurance), 65 to 75 percent of maximum heart rate: uninterrupted effort from 20 minutes, speaking remains possible. Develops the peripheral base — capillarisation and mitochondria; the range described in the article on zone 2 training.
- The Potential component (high-intensity work), 90 to 95 percent: intensive intervals of 15 seconds to 4 minutes with worthwhile breaks of 2 to 3 minutes. Acts centrally: stroke volume up, resting heart rate down.
- Fatigue resistance, 85 to 90 percent: 2 to 6 extensive intervals of 8 to 16 minutes. Improves glycogen stores, thermoregulation and respiratory muscles.
Two rules are decisive. First the distribution: Potential and fatigue resistance together make up around 20 percent of total volume, the remaining 80 percent belong in base endurance. Second the transition range between 75 and 85 percent of maximum heart rate — it should be avoided, because it empties the glycogen stores and costs a lot of recovery time without delivering proportionally. And that is exactly where, experience shows, a great many people train. Before the intensive blocks there is at least one quarter with base endurance training twice a week. A complete twelve-week cycle across all three components brings a performance increase of 10 to 15 percent.
Example: a training week in the base endurance block
This is what a week with four sessions can look like — strength training as a full-body programme, endurance in the base range:
- Monday: full-body strength training, order hip, knee, trunk, shoulder, arms; every exercise slowly to momentary muscular failure
- Tuesday: base endurance, 45 minutes at 65 to 75 percent of HFmax
- Wednesday: off, but with deliberate movement in everyday life
- Thursday: full-body strength training, same order, time under tension or resistance increased compared with Monday
- Friday: off or easy movement
- Saturday: base endurance, 60 to 75 minutes, ideally outdoors
- Sunday: rest day
In the Potential block, two Potential sessions per week are added, for example 1 minute of interval with a 3-minute worthwhile break, repeated six to eight times — the base endurance sessions remain alongside them.
Course tip from update Akademie: If you want to build training plans not just for yourself but for others, the Athletikcoach programme at update Akademie is the right route. Alongside your job it teaches the training theory on which this article is based: training principles, load management, strength training, the 3-component model and performance diagnostics. On two practical days you put what you have learned into practice on the equipment, carry out a step test and coach a complete training session.
Frequently asked questions about training planning
How long should a training plan run?
As a guide, four-week blocks with a subsequent review have proven themselves. What is decisive, though, is not the date but whether you can still make progress from session to session. As long as that works, there is no reason to change.
How many sessions per week do I need?
For full-body strength training, one to three sessions per week is the usual recommendation, with around 48 hours between heavy loading of the same muscle. Endurance can be built in more often, as long as the majority stays in the base range.
Do I have to overhaul the plan completely on a regular basis?
No. A change is only real variation if the muscular stimulus changes — a different machine for the same movement changes little. Frequent changes also make progress impossible to measure.
What do I do if I miss a week?
A single break is uncritical: you pick up again where you left off and work back towards your last load over one or two sessions. Only longer, unplanned interruptions are a problem — they lead to a halt in performance or to regression.
How do I notice that the plan is too much?
Typical signs are stagnating or declining performance combined with a high Foster scale rating, poor sleep and persistent lack of motivation. In that case you do not increase the stimulus but the recovery.
Conclusion
A good training plan comes about in six steps: current-state analysis, goal setting, load parameters, exercise selection in a sensible order, planned progression and honest review. Across the weeks you arrange the whole thing in blocks with clear focal points, keep around 80 percent of your endurance work in the base range and avoid the transition range. Anyone who plans this way no longer has to guess whether the training is doing anything — they read it off their own numbers.
