How to Choose the Right Training Program

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your training is not following a training program. Today, we’re discussing why this is the case and how to find the right workout routine for you! There are many factors you might consider when picking a training program. We run through the following and give you our opinion on how much they actually matter: Your age. Your sex. How strong you are. Your training goals. Your experience level. How you train today. Will you enjoy the new program? How many days can you train weekly, and for how long each time? We finish the episode by answering two listener questions: Is "greasing the groove" productive, or does it count as junk volume? As an experienced novice, how should I periodize for strength? Also, check out the free fitness advent calendar in our workout tracker app StrengthLog! It’s live now and gives you a new workout every day up until Christmas Day.  *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Which exercise is better for building your glutes and quadriceps, the barbell squat or the hip thrust? And which is better for improving your jumping and sprinting performance?  Today, we're discussing a new study that looked into these questions. And we follow that up by answering the following listener questions on hip thrusts versus squats: Why do training discussions always seem to be either or, never both? If I'm only gonna do one of them for a big beautiful butt, which one? Is it productive to do both in the same workout? I don't like hip thrusts. What is the best foot position to make squats hit the glutes more? My coach programs squat myo-reps sets, (30 reps @ 70% 1RM). How can I get her to stop? Lastly, check out the free fitness advent calendar in our workout tracker app StrengthLog! It’s live now and gives you a new workout every day up until Christmas Day.  *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

If you want to become really strong, you’ll also need to become bigger. But how much does your muscle mass correlate with your strength levels? And how should you train to optimize either one? This is a fascinating topic. To kick things off we have a new study examining the correlation between chest muscle thickness and bench press 1RM. Yes, yes, we know. Every person who confuses correlation with causation ends up dying. But hear us out! To broaden the discussion, we also answer a bunch of great questions from you guys and gals. *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that follow button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

How many sets should you do weekly for the biggest and fastest gains in strength and muscle size? How many workouts per week? Is the sky the limit, where more training always leads to more muscle growth? Today, we cover a new meta-study that hints at what the upper limits of muscle growth, strength gains, and training frequency might be. *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

In the last episode, we established that you can build more muscle mass while losing fat—even if you’re not a beginner in the gym. Let’s follow that up with a bunch of great questions on the same topic, sent in by our fantastic listeners! Timestamps: 05:50 – Question 1: I'm trying to be in a caloric deficit to lose body fat and lower my body fat percentage. How long can you be in a deficit of around 500-800 calories daily before the effect diminishes? Does the metabolism decrease by a lot? 12:00 – Question 2: How would you structure your strength training during a caloric deficit? 17:00 – Question 3: How much does muscle mass affect caloric needs? Can you increase your resting metabolic rate if you build bigger muscles? 21:00 – Question 4: How big of a caloric surplus should you be on to build muscle? When does the surplus become unnecessarily big? 26:00 – Question 5: If I recall correctly, you mentioned in an earlier episode that you should eat the amount of protein appropriate for your target weight when on a diet. This means that if I weigh 100 kg and want to drop down to 80 kg, and I want to eat 2 g protein/kg, I should count my protein need using 80 kg and not 100 kg. Will I lose more muscle mass if I do that compared to if I would have counted using 100 kg? 30:30 – Question 6: I strength train 3-4 days per week, and on the 5th day, I started doing kickboxing cardo, which usually burns around 1,000 calories in an hour. On the kickboxing days, I end up in quite the caloric deficit compared to the rest of the week, where I eat to a maintenance level of around 2,400 calories. My question is: should I make it a point to replace those extra 1,000 calories I burn from kickboxing in order to maintain my muscle growth, or is it not such a big deal since it is just one day a week? *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

We’ve already done three episodes on fat loss (see episodes 20, 21, and 22). Now it’s time to tackle the holy grail: How to build more muscle mass while still losing fat! Most know that this is quite easy for overweight beginners. But what about the rest of us? Can it even be done without cycles of bulking and cutting? Let’s discuss it! To help guide us, we will also answer a handful of questions on the topic from you guys. *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Do you gain more muscle and strength when you change your exercises regularly, or can you keep doing the same ones all the time? That’s the topic for today, and to kick the discussion off we have a fun new study on this subject! The researchers wanted to see if varying exercises (for the same muscle group) are superior to just doing the same exercises all the time, and recruited 90 untrained women to do so. The results? Expected and surprising at the same time! *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

It’s time to wrap up the mini-series on training for bigger arms, with your best questions on how to succeed. Should you, for instance, train your arms daily for better gains? And how do you train if one of your arms is in a cast because it’s broken? You guys had so many good questions today! See the timestamps below. And don’t miss the last one, where we discuss muscle asymmetry between the left and right arm. Having one arm that’s bigger and stronger than the other one, is quite a common worry out there … Timestamps: 03:15—Question 1: Is it counterproductive to train arms every day? By that, I mean to train them hard and with high volume—not just a few reps after the regular training. Some believe that it is not possible to overtrain the arms. 09:30 – Questions 2 & 3: What has more visual impact, big biceps or big triceps? And how much of a difference do the shoulders make for the appearance of the arms? 12:25 – Question 4:  Please give us some fun and effective exercises for the forearms! 17:50 – Question 5: Is it possible to train your arm to prevent tearing the bicep tendon while deadlifting? 22:00 – Question 6: How should you train if you have a broken arm? 26:40 – Question 7: When doing overhead triceps extensions I get a cramp in my left rotator cuff. Is that because of mobility issues, and will it disappear if I just continue doing this movement? 30:30 – Question 8: What is the best exercise method to increase 1RM in barbell bicep curls? 35:50 – Question 9: I’m 79 years old and I have, against all odds, managed to build substantial biceps and triceps muscles after 5 years of strength training. The problem is that I got bigger muscles in my left arm. I’m right-handed and can handle more with that arm. Should I do more reps with the right arm to trigger those muscles more? *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

The triceps are one of the biggest muscles in the upper body, and for big-looking arms, they are more important than your biceps—making up around two-thirds of the muscular volume in your upper arms! Training the triceps is not as straightforward as training the biceps, and if you want big, strong triceps, you’ll need to know the tricks of the trade. In this episode, we give you a quick anatomy lesson, followed by exercise selections and our recommendations for sets and reps. In the next one, we’ll answer your questions about training for big arms. If you want to know more about our workout routine Armageddon, read this article. *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.

Here we have it, every man’s (and quite a few women’s) biggest dream: bigger biceps! Is it enough to only do pull-ups and rowing exercises for maximum bicep growth, or should you add direct bicep work too? After a short anatomy lesson, we present you with everything you need to know about building big, juicy upper arms, including exercise selection, training frequency, and different approaches on how to include bicep training in your workout routine. Next episode, we’ll flip the coin and talk about the other side of your upper arm—your triceps! Also, we have merch now: check out strengthlog.com/shop for t-shirts and coffee cups. We’ll add more products and prints soon. *** Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button! You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam. Become a part of our community on Facebook here. *** This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden. To support us, download the world's best gym workout tracker app StrengthLog here. It's completely ad-free and the most generous fitness app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life. If you want a t-shirt with ”Train hard, eat well, die anyway”, check out our shop here.