August 5, 2026
How to Build a Workout Plan for Your Clients
A practical guide for personal trainers on building progressive workout plans — from understanding client goals to selecting exercises and structuring weekly training days.
Start with the client's goal
Before you pick a single exercise, you need to know what the client is training for. A client who wants to build muscle needs a different plan from one who wants to lose fat or improve athletic performance. Ask about their experience level, how many days per week they can train, any injuries or limitations, and what equipment they have access to.
Write the goal down in one sentence. Everything in the plan — exercise selection, set and rep ranges, rest periods — should serve that goal.
Choose the right exercises
A good workout plan balances compound and isolation movements. Compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and rows work multiple muscle groups and should form the backbone of each session. Isolation exercises target a single muscle group and fill in the gaps.
Group exercises by primary muscle group so you can build balanced sessions. For example, a push day might include a chest compound movement, a shoulder movement, and a triceps isolation exercise. ValhallaFit tags every exercise with a primary muscle group and up to three secondary groups, so you can filter your library by body part when building a session.
Set reps, sets, and weight targets
Rep ranges should match the goal. For strength, aim for 3-6 reps per set with heavier weights. For muscle growth, 8-12 reps is the standard range. For endurance, 15+ reps with lighter loads. Most general-fitness clients benefit from a mix.
For each exercise, prescribe a target number of sets, target reps, and a starting weight. In ValhallaFit you can also set an alternative exercise with its own targets — useful when a client cannot perform the primary movement due to equipment or mobility limitations.
Structure the week
Decide how many training days the client can commit to and split the work across them. A common starting point is three days per week: two full-body sessions or an upper/lower/full-body split. More experienced clients can handle four or five days with a push-pull-legs or body-part split.
Each training day in the plan is a template. The client does not need to follow it on a fixed calendar day — they start a session when they are ready, and the plan repeats weekly so the same training day can be used again the next week.
Apply progressive overload
Progressive overload — gradually increasing the demand on the muscles — is what drives results. The simplest way to apply it is to increase weight, reps, or sets over time. When a client can complete all prescribed reps across all sets with good form, increase the weight slightly the next week.
Review each client's completed sessions regularly. ValhallaFit shows you what the client actually lifted versus what you prescribed, including performance deltas, so you can see when they are ready to progress or when a plan needs adjusting.
Review and adjust
A workout plan is not set-and-forget. Check in on your clients' completed sessions each week. Look for stalled progress, missed sessions, or signs the plan is too easy or too hard. Adjust the exercises, targets, or volume as needed.
With ValhallaFit, every completed session is stored with the actual weights and reps the client logged. You can pull up a client's history, see their trend over time, and make informed coaching decisions for the next block.