There is literally just one question you need to ask yourself when deciding how to design a fitness or strength program:

What is the ultimate goal of the program?

I know, I know. This is probably the most cliche and overused advice in the book but cliches exist for a reason. Let me illustrate this point with a story…

I was once invited to a workout class by a friend. He was very excited because he liked the leading trainer and felt like he had a lot of potential. I rarely ever participate in fitness classes for the sole reason that they are rarely conducive to my goals.

I went along with my friend because he was so excited about his trainer and I always try and give people the benefit of the doubt. When we got to the gym, the trainer let us know that we are training legs for the day. Great! I love leg day.

The following hour reinforced my personal stance on fitness classes. We did lunges and every variation of lunges… For an hour. Lunges, jump lunges, curtsey lunges, lateral lunges… You name it. We did it.

If getting tired and sore was the end goal of the workout, then we achieved that goal. But I need to ask a simple question… What did we actually accomplish? If we built a full program off of this concept, where will we be in a month? 6 months?

What is the end goal?

This is what you need to keep in mind with everything you decide to do in your program. A vast majority of your effort and training economy must be dedicated to your goal.

If your goal is to get as big and strong as possible, build your squat, and bench press 500, do you think you should be spending all of your training on running marathons? Or doing lunges for an hour straight?

You need to decide what your goal is and the program will start to fall together. Let’s do a basic example of the squat. What does it take to build a strong squat?

To start, you should probably squat and perform variations of the squat at varying intensities.

From there, we can ask, “What sorts of things do we need for a strong squat?” We need a strong… everything, basically. A strong trunk, hips, quads, hamstrings… So then we ask, how do we build those?

We know that exercises like good mornings, Romanian deadlifts, conventional deadlifts, loaded lunges, split squats, jumps, leg presses, other variations of the squat, etc, will build the squat. So, we should probably include and rotate those exercises on a regular basis.

We can take it a step further… What will build the aforementioned assistance lifts? We can go back to our list of requirements for a strong squat and come up with smaller, accessory lifts from there. Glute bridges, variations of hamstring curls, leg extensions, and ab work will build up the assistance lifts.

Using these principles, we can come up with a basic lower body workout that emphasizes the squat:

1. Squat: 5×5
2. Romanian deadlift: 3×5-8
3. Reverse Lunges: 2×5-8
4. Hip thrusts: 2×8-10
5. Hanging leg raise: 3xAMAP

We squat, of course. The Romanian deadlift and reverse lunges will build the squat. The hip thrusts will build the Romanian deadlift and lunge. The leg raises will build everything. We can regularly rotate the assistance lifts every 4-8 weeks to avoid accommodation.

Of course, we need to ask ourselves, “What is the current weakness that I need to address?” Then you have the answer to which accessory movements to include.

But what about the other exercises? Are the muscles getting enough work?

If we are using a 4-day workout rotation (Bench, Squat, Overhead press, Deadlift), we can reinforce the complementary movements and muscles groups on the other lower body day.

1. Deadlift: 5×5
2. Leg Press: 3×5-8
3. Nordic Leg Curl: 3×5-10
4. Bulgarian Split Squat: 2×5-8
5. Side plank: 5xALAP (as long as possible)

We now have a well-rounded program for the lower body that is goal oriented. We can use the same logic for the upper body.

Remember that every effort you exert must serve the goal.