First time programing. Thoughts on my program

Hey there!

This is my first time programming my own routine so I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. I ran Fierce 5 in 2024 and I think I’m now ready to design my own program.

About me:

  • Male
  • Age: 28
  • Height: 183 cm (6’)
  • Weight: 77 kg (170 lbs)
  • Lifts: Squat - 8 reps at 85 kg (187 lbs) and Bench Press - 8 reps at 70 kg (155 lbs)

The program that I’ve designed for 2025:

Monday: Horizontal push / pull

  1. Bench Press - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps / 3’ rest
  2. Wide Grip Cable Row - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  3. Ring Push Up - 5 sets following this progresion: 12-15 Pullups | 50 Pullups
  4. Machine Reverse Fly - 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps / 1’ rest
  5. DB Curl - 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps / 1’ rest

Friday: Vertical push / pull

  1. Standing OHP - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps / 3’ rest
  2. Pull Up - 5 sets following this progresion: 12-15 Pullups | 50 Pullups
  3. Lat Pulldown - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  4. Standing Face Pull - 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps / 1’ rest
  5. Cable Pressdown - 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps / 1’ rest

For my lower body training I aim for athletic legs with an emphasis on glutes. My calves are developing well from compound exercises so I didn’t include direct calf work.

Wednesday: Lower A

  1. Back Squat - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps / 3’ rest
  2. DB Step Up - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  3. Hip Thrust 1 + 1/4 - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  4. Leg Curl - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest

Saturday: Lower B

  1. Bulgarian Split Squat - 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps / 3’ rest
  2. Hip Thrust - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  3. Leg Press (glute emphasis) - 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps / 2’ rest
  4. Glute ham raises - 3 sets of 8 to reps / 2’ rest

Thanks in advance, any feedback is appreciated!

I would replace one of the hip thrust sessions with RDLs. But that’s just me.

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Way too complicated for where you are tbh. If you took 6 months to run a beginner program you would be able to take your shiny new 2x BW squat and 1.5x BW bench and put it towards whatever more specific goals you had in mind

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Serious question: why do you want to design your own program?

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These things cannot all be true at the same time.

If someone’s sole source of income is getting people stronger and more muscled, they probably know what theyre doing.
To put it more bluntly: they know more than you do.

So pick one of the programs that actually has a body of evidence to support it’s effectiveness, and just do that :slightly_smiling_face:

Or you could just write up your own thing and run it. I do this all the time, but I’ve typically gotten more and better results when running a program written by actual coaches.

Thanks for the responses!

I’m aware that almost any proven program available online would be more optimal than any program that non-experts like me could design ourselves.

However, I believe that onyone planning to train for life should know how to design their own programs. Don’t you think so? I know I could stick with the fullbody version of Fierce5 to push my lifts a bit further until I plateau and then transition for many years to the upper/lower version of the same routine.

And most likely, even thought it’s a generic routine written by someone who doesn’t know me it would yield good results (possibly even more optimal than any individualized program I could come up with).

But in the long run, wouldn’t it be desirable for me to have the knowledge and experience to create my own programs? Whether for motivation (doing exercises I enjoy), individualization (choosing exercises that suit me best) or even just scheduling my training according to my availability. Ultimately, it’s about the freedom that comes with being able to do it yourself.

Is my routine really so bad that it would be better for me to avoid programming my own workouts for now?

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Eh. I think I could come at this two ways:

  1. Let’s say, no, we don’t need to know. Why not? Well, it just doesn’t matter. There’s never a time when someone else’s programs aren’t available to me, and there’s never a time where a coach with years of experience won’t have trained more people in more situations than me. Now, certainly there’s some learnings I want to have so I can evaluate advice and choose the right program for me. Let’s use a mechanic as an analogy: I want to have some idea what makes my vroom vroom go fast, and what words are made up, etc., so I understand my needs, know what car categories I’m shopping, and so I don’t get ripped off at the repair shop. I don’t, however, need to know how to rebuild a carburetor… and if I try to do so myself it’s likely to cost more time, money and problems than if I just paid the expert.

  2. Or, let’s say yes, we should learn how to program for ourselves. To learn any pursuit, you need both theory and application. What better way to gain both (whilst getting more jackeder!) than to keep running a bunch of coaches’ programs on yourself for years and years, tweaking things as you go vs starting from scratch with very little basis and too many variables?

All that said, there’s certainly no reason not to learn programming, and your reasons why list (motivation, etc) is great. I’ll just reference the above points in either case.

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The Fierce 5 program worked for you.

And it looks like you took what “worked” from that routine (the amount of sets/reps) and switched in some lifts you’d rather do instead of what you did before.

I think this is 100% OK.

You’re still sticking pretty close to the routine that worked. Not just coming up with some totally off the wall, crazy workload you dreamed up yourself.

Honestly, this is pretty much how I used to “try out” and evaluate different lifts. Just do the new lifts with same sets/reps that worked before, and see if I’d get better results.

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Standardize your reps… 4 to 6 or 5 to 7. Max MUR… minimizes fatigue

Some redundancy but looks decent enough. Could be more optimal.

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Could always be more optimal.

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I have a couple of comments / question.

  1. Overall the exercise selection doesn’t look too bad, its essential an upper / lower split over 4 days.
  2. You don’t actually say what your goals for this routine are ? I am going to assume as you are on T Nation you want to get bigger and stronger.
  3. You say you have designed this program for 2025. Is it your intention to run this routine for the entire year ?
  4. What you have written out is your planned exercise routine but I would not call this a program. You make no mention of what progression method you intend to use, how long each training block will be, how will you select weights etc. How you will re-set when you are no longer progressing etc, etc

If I were you I would find a good push pull program and follow that for a few blocks before even considering writing something. That being said, what really matters is discipline, consistency and effort over time. If you are set on doing your plan as written then log all your workouts and food, train really hard and don’t miss a session. You will still progress and hopefully learn something along the way.

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It’s fine dude

I agree with you - learning to write one’s own programs is fulfilling for a lot of people.

As long as you accept that it mightn’t work quite as well as “established” programs (it will, if you try hard enough), you’re not missing out on anything

Periodising programs is a sham anyways

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I wasn’t familiar enough to know that, and totally agree that’s how I’d “find out”.

What do you mean? I’m probably way onboard, too, but like reading someone smarter explain why.

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I probably don’t have the same size and strength goals as most of you.

However, I’m definitely aiming for athletic capability and overall good physical shape which ultimately requires getting stronger.

I also want to look great, lean, balanced, emphasizing certain proportions if possible and with a certain amount of muscle which means I do need to get bigger to some extent.

I don’t use training blocks. The progression method I have in mind depends on the exercise and its capacity for overload. For example, with the bench press and squat I’m planning to select a weight that feels challenging within my target rep range and do this:

Example with bench press: I’m currently working with 70 kg in the 6-8 rep range for January. I’ll stick with this weight for an entire month (four bench press sessions). Hopefully, by the end of the month I’ll be able to hit 3x8 with that weight but as long as I’m close, that’s fine too.

Then, I’ll increase the weight by 2 kg for the next month and repeat the process.

For other exercises, like cable rows and lat pulldowns, I aim for progressive overload by adding very small dumbbells to the stack to keep the jumps minimal. For example, once I can do 3x10 on the wide grip cable row I add 0.5-1 kg and repeat the process until I can hit 3x10 again.

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Yep. I’d say that the routine I’ve created is a mix between my experience running Fierce5 and the influence of Joe Delaney.

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I’m seeing good progress with The Complete Power Look Program.

I’m using Zercher Squat, Dip, Deadlift, Incline press for my core exercises. Training some back on both Squat and Deadlift days.

This amounts to basically a Leg/Back-A, Push-A, Leg/Back-B, Push-B, which is what it looks like you want to do.

I started with On/On/Off/On/Off/On/Off,
but recently added a rest day and training every other day.

So you are going to use a simple double progression method. Once you hit the prescribed reps for all sets you add a little weight and repeat. This will work fine especially as you have not been training that long. I would expect to see more than 2kg progress a month for someone at your stage of development. Good luck with it. Start a training log on here and track how you go.

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The decades of research investigating “Periodisation” doesn’t necessarily support any form of phase potentiation or ideal a-priori structuring of training blocks. It simply supports training variation as being useful.

Sure, athletes may have specific weaknesses (e.g speed, strength, size, endurance) which can be emphasised in training, but they all take far longer than a typical 3-6 week block to correct. Generally speaking, all of the above qualities need 2-3+ months for any type of change. When dealing with such a long time scale, concurrent/conjugate style training strategies make more sense

The third big reason I’m not a fan of periodising plans is practicality. All the periodising structures in the Russian literature coaches love was developed in full-time training academies. Athletes had no choice but to train, and could dedicate whatever time and recover was needed from them. In the real world, (most) people’s ability to recover and train will fluctuate week to week. Hence, it’s far better to “roll with the punches” than plan significantly far ahead.

If you like more academic papers, this is the most-cited article in this area of sports science:

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Whilst periodisation in terms of setting out a year of meso cycles or phases may have inconsistent benefits, what are your thoughts on structuring training into blocks to allow for progression and deload, rather than trying to do one continuous double progression method over the year. My own experience with using the same training block over and over with small increases has been good. I know Mike Tuchscerer did the same thing, using the same block for the best part of a year. Tagging @wiseman83 cause he has also used this successfully.

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I didn’t know about this paper. If this is correct is the suggestion that just monitoring recovery and applying new and intense stimulus is enough?

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