How to plan your workouts for the week

We all know we should be moving more, but how can we fit all that movement into a busy week? On this episode, tips from a physical therapist and a personal trainer on how to set up a week of workouts, when to focus on cardio versus strength training, and the importance of compound movements. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit/?hl=en Sign up for our newsletter here. https://www.npr.org/newsletter/life-kit Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening and convenient playlists of popular help topics like personal finance, getting healthy, and more. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:16Speaker 01

  I feel like the biggest thing that stops people from exercising is just the mental energy of like, what do I even do? Which makes sense. It's overwhelming and there's so many different plans online. It's difficult to like sort through all the noise of it.

• 0:33Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, and you can want to be a completist about it and be like, oh, if I'm doing this, I'm going all in and I'm doing it perfectly. I'm doing exactly what's recommended.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you miss one day and you're like, ah, this doesn't matter anymore. Like, I'm just gonna...

• 0:46Marielle Segarra?

  I give up.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:48Marielle Segarra?

  Tell the people who you are.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I am Margaret Serino. I'm a producer at Life Kit.

• 0:52Marielle Segarra?

  And you have some expertise specifically, like in your personal life, on exercise.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Yes, I am a personal trainer. I'm a CrossFit coach. I was an athlete many years ago.

• 1:04Marielle Segarra?

  What kind of athlete?

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I was a rower.

• 1:06Marielle Segarra?

  Don't you feel like once an athlete, always an athlete? I don't know.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I like to think of myself that way.

• 1:11Marielle Segarra?

  I was a mathlete and I like to say once a mathlete, always a mathlete.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Always a mathlete, yeah.

• 1:16Marielle Segarra?

  Well, you're listening to Life Kit. I'm Marielle Segarra and on this episode, we're going to talk about how to come up with a workout plan for a given week. We will cover cardio and strength training guidelines and which exercises to start with. And Margaret is going to walk us through some sample plans for different kinds of goals.

• 1:35Marielle Segarra?

  Well, let's start out with cardio. We have done episodes on this before and y'all should definitely check those out. But there are some basic recommendations that come from the federal government.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  So there are these guidelines from the government, the physical activity guidelines for Americans. These are decided on by this committee of researchers, health professionals, doctors across the country, you know, looking at research and deciding a very, very broad guideline for all Americans over the age of three, basically, which is that adults need 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity or a combo, you know, a mix and match.

• 2:19Marielle Segarra?

  Your heart rate is an indicator of whether you're doing moderate or vigorous

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25Marielle Segarra?

  intensity activity, right?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that could be a great metric for people to track if they have like a heart rate monitor or a smartwatch that does that for them. Obviously, the higher your heart rate, the more you're taxing your system that is tipping into that vigorous intensity category. Because, you know, someone's moderate is going to be someone else's vigorous.

• 2:47Marielle Segarra?

  What are some maybe surprising ways that people can get cardio?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Ooh, great question. I think that there are lots of creative ways you could work this into your daily life if you are someone who's short on time and is not like, I'm going to set aside two hours to go on my moderate intensity run today. Looking at your commute, how do you get to work? Can you make a change there? Instead of taking the train, maybe you bike to work. If you are even shorter on time and you're like, I just want to really spike my heart rate into that vigorous intensity zone and I have a jump rope, 10 minutes of jump roping will definitely do that. You know, maybe you're biking to work and then on the weekends you want to play a tennis game with your friends or something like that. This doesn't need to be cookie cutter,

• 3:35Speaker 01

  specific cardio activity that you commit to.

• 3:39Marielle Segarra?

  After the break, what to know about strength training.

• 3:46Speaker 00

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• 4:16Speaker 03

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• 4:59Speaker 03

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• 5:06Marielle Segarra?

  Let's talk about strength training.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:08Marielle Segarra?

  What are the recommendations for that? How much should we be doing?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Well, so these same guidelines, they do say that adults need at least two days of muscle strengthening activity each week. That doesn't necessarily need to be, I go to the gym and I lift weights two times a week.

• 5:26Marielle Segarra?

  I really don't like the gym.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  That is okay. You can do your strength training at home with body weight resistance. You could do squats in your living room. You could hold a plank. If you have a pull-up bar, you could start working on that or do push-ups. Body weight workouts can be so hard if you just know how to make them the right amount of difficult for you.

• 5:49Marielle Segarra?

  So on those days that you're doing strength training, what exactly should we be doing? How do we know how to plan one of these workouts?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  I would say, obviously, this depends on what your goals are with your workouts, with your movement. Like, let's say you're training for a bodybuilding competition and you have like a very specific aesthetic goal you are chasing. Maybe you want to do certain isolation movements to specifically enhance that muscle. But for the vast majority of people who aren't doing that, let's say, or just want to train for life, I would really recommend that they do compound movements. Those are movements that work multiple joints and muscle groups as opposed to isolation movements, like a bicep curl, for example. Your bicep is just going up and down. That's the main muscle you're working.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  If you swapped that out for like a push-up, that's going to work your pecs, your triceps, your deltoids, your core, especially your abdominal muscles. Basically, more bang for your buck. The other benefit to compound movements that is even more important is that they are going to more closely mirror movements we are always naturally doing every day. So as we get older or as we go about our lives, like, life is going to feel easier if we're used to practicing compound movements in the gym. Here's what Akani Salako told me. He's a physical therapist, fitness and nutrition coach.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  I always want you to think of, what am I doing in my daily life? Even something as simple as taking some dishes and putting it in the top of your cabinet, you're pressing overhead. A push, when you push your grocery cart, you know, let's say you fall or something, you have to pull yourself up. A pull-up is another form of that. So a lot of the movements you do in your daily activity, think, what exercise in the gym looks like this?

• 7:37Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, so we're doing compound movements. How many should we put in a single workout?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  You could plan for three to four compound movements, two for upper body, two for lower. For example, we talked about push-ups, but you might also throw in pull-ups, which are going to use a variety of back muscles, but also your shoulders and brachialis, a muscle in your arm that flexes your elbow.

• 8:02Marielle Segarra?

  Mm, important.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Very. And then for those lower body compound movements, that could mean squats, lunges and deadlifts, which are going to hit those lower body groups, but also bring in your back muscles a lot more. Those are the five I would tell people to start with.

• 8:18Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, so let's say I'm doing deadlifts or whatever it is that I choose. How many reps and sets should I be doing? And also, how do I know how much weight to use?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  I would say a lot of that work around figuring out your sets and reps is going to depend on how hard that movement is for you. So let's talk about the deadlift. Akani told me at like the most basic level, a deadlift is literally you're picking a pen off the floor. That's what it is, you know?

• 8:45Marielle Segarra?

  A micro deadlift.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  A micro deadlift. At its most basic level is that movement pattern, but you could also do that with a 30-pound dumbbell or a barbell that you're adding plates on to on either side. You know, this is infinitely scalable in terms of how hard or easy you want to make it on yourself. And the important thing is to know what's appropriate for you, what's going to feel like a challenge, not too easy, but also not so hard that you get discouraged and never do it again. And then in terms of how many reps, Akani said, aim somewhere between eight to 12 each set and then take note of when it's time to go up in weight.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  I want to pick a weight that allows me to go eight to 12 reps. And once I find that weight, if I only hit eight the first week, that's fine. Next week, I'm trying to hit, do the same weight, but I'm trying to get to 10. Once I get to 12, that's an indication, okay, now I should be increasing my weight.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  But I think the best way to illustrate this is actually to bring you some hypothetical gym goers, Marielle. Huh, what do you think about that?

• 9:49Marielle Segarra?

  I'm ready.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  So person A, I'm going to call Albert, our hypothetical athlete number one.

• 9:56Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, not a real person.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Not a real person.

• 9:58Marielle Segarra?

  Okay.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Let's say Albert is someone who's pretty sedentary right now. Maybe he works a desk job, doesn't do any specific workouts at the moment, but he really wants to get into resistance training. His goal is to put on muscle kind of all over. I asked Akani what he would design for Albert. He said to start with three full-body resistance training workouts each week. So that might mean in a single session, something for the upper, the lower and the core. And also, Albert is going to start very slow with weights. And since Albert's main goal is to put on muscle, I'd have him focus on that, let's say, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, then rest the other days or find time for, you know, a dedicated cardio session once a week

• 10:44Speaker 01

  or get lots of cardio throughout the day.

• 10:46Marielle Segarra?

  Mm-hmm, yeah. So if he can only set aside the time for workouts three times a week, then he does his strength training in those times and then he does like, he takes the stairs when he's going up, you know, in his building at work or he walks faster to...

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Takes the jump rope out.

• 11:04Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's check, done. Are you ready for person B?

• 11:09Marielle Segarra?

  I'm so ready.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Great. She's Bertha. So Bertha is new to the gym as well. She's looking to improve her cardiovascular fitness. Caveat, Bertha is really short on time. She only has about an hour in the gym before she needs to head to work. Akani told me that what he would do is start her off with cardio at the beginning of each workout.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  We can start with a light five to 10 minute jog. We're doing walk jog intervals. You jog for a minute, you rest for 30 seconds. And your resting is where you're walking. And we can do those intervals in the first 10 to 15 minutes. As you, your cardiovascular endurance increases over time, you can try to pace yourself to where you're getting at least a 15 minute complete jog.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  So Bertha's doing her jogs. And because we're short on time, I would have her focus on only one or two resistance training movements after those runs. So front squats and pull ups or deadlifts and pushups. But I spoke to another expert who had a different recommendation for Bertha. This is Mallory Mostov. She's a personal trainer, coach, and the co-owner of Loft Fitness, a gym in Seattle that does CrossFit, high rocks, strength and conditioning, weightlifting, powerlifting. Mallory is a big proponent of combining these exercises, especially for people who are short on time, where-

• 12:31Speaker 05

  You're doing like three different exercises as fast as you can. So your heart rate's up the entire time. It's kind of, you could think of it like a circuit training. I'm now rowing for 200 meters and then doing a dumbbell press and a pushup. So my heart rate's staying elevated the entire time. So I'm getting like more out of that short session.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  So in that scenario, let's say Bertha sets the clock for 20 minutes and just sees how many rounds she can get of 200 meter row, 20 dumbbell presses with a lighter weight, and then 10 to 15 pushups, for example. That is definitely going to be time efficient. It's definitely going to be a very good workout.

• 13:12Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, you're going to sweat a lot.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  You're going to sweat a lot.

• 13:14Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, who's our next athlete?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Christine, who is not new to the gym. She considers herself a pretty experienced weightlifter. She likes to go on long bikes and runs. But she is coming back from a back injury. She hasn't worked out in a really long time. Mallory told me that what she doesn't want Christine to do is stop herself from moving at all.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  I think one thing that keeps injured people stuck is like, I can't do this movement, so I can't work out, you know? Or if like I can't do something as written, then I just can't do it. When realistically, like, as long as you're moving, it's better than not moving. So you can sub out any exercise with a different exercise that doesn't agitate that body part.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Maybe she concentrates on upper body. And then when her doctor clears her, she starts incorporating lower body exercises in slowly, you know, doing squats, but not going as deep, or doing deadlifts at a much lighter weight. The one thing Mallory emphasized to me is, do not do anything today that's going to make you feel worse tomorrow. So I would tell Christine, be careful, be smart. Back off if a movement feels wrong, but don't stop moving completely. Ultimately, Christine knows her body better than anyone else, and she should trust her intuition.

• 14:29Marielle Segarra?

  What can you do if you injure your arms or your hands? I had tendonitis in my wrist and my hand recently, and I had to wear a splint. But I still wanted to work out.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:41Marielle Segarra?

  And it was especially hard to work out my upper body. But even my lower body, with the weights at home, I couldn't hold them in my hand.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so tricky. Wrist injuries are such a pain because they're so integral to literally every part of life. But there are modifications for people who have wrist injuries. Maybe that means flipping a pulling motion for a pushing motion, or vice versa. Or maybe that means like, let's say you're doing a plank, going onto your forearms instead of onto the palms of your hands. Or if there are motions you can do where your wrist is really neutral, even if you're holding that dumbbell, so not curved or at an angle, but your wrist is stacked right over your elbow.

• 15:22Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah. I started doing more mat exercises.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Like calisthenics.

• 15:26Marielle Segarra?

  Laying on my back and, you know, doing stuff with my legs. I don't know. It's like-

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Fun, yeah.

• 15:32Marielle Segarra?

  Like toe taps and leg lifts and things like that.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Incredible. I love hearing this. I actually have a question for you, Marielle, as you are telling me these things.

• 15:45Marielle Segarra?

  Yes.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  I think you should be our final hypothetical athlete in this episode.

• 15:51Marielle Segarra?

  Coming up, my workout routine gets analyzed by the professionals.

• 16:03Speaker 03

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• 16:07Speaker 00

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• 16:33Speaker 03

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• 16:51Speaker 01

  So Marielle, how would you describe your fitness goals?

• 16:57Marielle Segarra?

  I think that I am just trying to stay strong and healthy. I am trying to not get injured. I like to play softball. I like to rock climb sometimes. I want to be able to do those things. And I think it would be good for me to strengthen my core more.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Okay, good for everyone to strengthen their core more.

• 17:19Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  And actually, you did give me a sample of what you currently do. And thank you for being game for- We're gonna-

• 17:29Marielle Segarra?

  I tried hard not to like pad it. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, this is what I actually did.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  I respect that. And to briefly summarize those two days of fitness for you. So on Monday, you walked about 3,000 steps. You did three sets of 10 squats, wall pushups, planks, jumping jacks, calf raises. And then Tuesday, you went on a bunch of shorter walks. So like 15 minutes, 10 minutes here and there. Walked a flight of stairs. And then did 20 jumping jacks, squats, lunge walks, calf raises. I have that all right.

• 18:07Marielle Segarra?

  Yes.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  So I did bring this to Akani and Mallory. Akani said this is a really good starting plan. He would recommend some tweaks, which I can tell you right now. First up, one thing you'll notice, we don't have any pulling motions in this list so far. So if we did a pull, like a back row, maybe with dumbbells or a barbell, that could be good. Or a pull up, if you have access to a bar at home. You could also use a resistance band to scale those, make them a little easier if you're working up to that.

• 18:39Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, I was going to say, like, me, pull ups.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  You and most people.

• 18:45Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, I'm not there.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  That's totally fair. There are tons of ways to scale a pull up. You could just do the negative or descending portion of the motion. So you jump to the top, lower yourself down slowly. You could take a resistance band, loop it around the bar, put your feet in that thing. It's going to take some of your weight off. It's going to feel like you're bouncing up and down. Super fun. So also, the next note he gave, if we're ready. We have hit the front of the body a lot, but we also want to target the back of the body. So deadlifts would be great for that, hip thrusts. Both of those are going to target your glutes and hamstrings. We're basically looking for like complementary lower body movements to all of the squats you've been doing. So I'm going to give you kind of a sample layout here.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  And the way I have this laid out for you basically is three full body resistance training days, an intense cardio day. And then also, there are three rest days programmed into this. You want to give your body enough time to adjust and recover, especially if you're working up to a new volume that you're not used to. Let's say Monday, you're hitting the front muscle groups. Tuesday, you could hit the back muscle groups. So maybe you rest Wednesday. And then Thursday, you might do like a more intense cardio session. Then maybe on Fridays, you work on side and core movements to make that complete, well-rounded plan.

• 20:07Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, I mean, four days of working out a week, I'm not there right now.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  And even the two, the two is good. And if we're doing the two consistently, then we add in the third, you know? Once you get into the habit of it and start being like, okay, this is what I'm expecting. This is my plan. I got it. From that point, we can slowly start to ramp up the intensity over time.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  If we look long term, if we set goals long term, okay, I'm doing these things with my body weight. Now can I do them with resistance over time?

• 20:38Speaker 05

  So like, instead of just doing body squats every day, tomorrow we're going to hold five pounds. And that's it. Like, it doesn't have to get scary, you know? But it's just like, we're just going to add- Like a little bit of load to it.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And there are other ways you can also ramp up the intensity. By the way, it doesn't just need to be like constantly reaching for the heavier pair of dumbbells. For example, tempo is a fun thing to play around with. Maybe on your squats, you take three seconds to descend to the bottom. So you count in your head, one, two, three. An extra slow squat. You pause at the bottom for three seconds and then you explode up to the top. Or you could up the reps. Maybe you start with 10 and then you're doing 20 and then you're doing 30. Just remember, everything can be scaled up or down.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  It can feel really daunting and overwhelming to carve out this much time for taking care of your body and giving it that movement, especially if you're not in the habit of it. But this will literally improve all aspects of your life. I really swear by that.

• 21:45Marielle Segarra?

  Well, now I have renewed excitement about working out.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 21:50Marielle Segarra?

  Thanks, Margaret.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Thanks, Marielle.

• 21:54Marielle Segarra?

  That was Life Kit producer Margaret Serino. All right, y'all, it's time for a recap. Takeaway one, cardio is important. Federal guidelines recommend that adults get 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise, or, you know, some combination of the two. Your heart rate is an indicator of whether you're in the moderate or the vigorous zone. And you can calculate your target heart rate based on your age or look on the American Heart Association website. Also, feel free to get creative with your cardio. It's not just about walking or jogging. You can jump rope, take the stairs, dance, roller skate, do mat exercises, seated boxing,

• 22:38Marielle Segarra?

  rowing, whatever gets your heart rate up. Takeaway two, federal guidelines also recommend at least two days a week of muscle strengthening. That doesn't mean you have to go to the gym, though. You might keep some weights at home or do body weight exercises. I saw a guy doing pull-ups on a scaffolding in New York City recently, so, you know, think outside the box. Takeaway three, unless you have very specific bodybuilding goals, the best approach to strength training is probably compound movements, exercises that work multiple muscle groups at once, like squats, push-ups, deadlifts, rather than bicep curls, for instance. Takeaway four, when you're strength training, think about your whole body. You want to alternate between pushing and pulling exercises, like a push-up versus a pull-up.

• 23:22Marielle Segarra?

  Also, work your upper body, your core and your legs. And don't just work the front of your body. Think about the muscles on the backside, too. And takeaway five, if you're short on time, you can combine cardio and strength training. For instance, doing three different exercises as fast as you can in a circuit to get your heart rate up. Lastly, remember, these guidelines are a goal, but any amount you do is going to be good for you. Don't let perfectionism get in your way here. I say this from personal experience. Move when you can, as much as you can, and have some fun out there. All right, that's our show. By the way, if you're interested in learning more about strength training, we have put together a whole newsletter series on this topic. To sign up, go to npr.org/stronger.

• 24:07Marielle Segarra?

  This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Our digital editor is Malika Garib and our visuals editor is CJ Riqueland. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor and Lauren Gonzalez is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tagle and Claire Marie Schneider. Engineering support comes from Simon Laszlo-Jansen. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado. Special thanks to Will Stone. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive and more. Try it free for 14 days at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 25:05Speaker 00

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