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Everyone has something that annoys them about the fitness industry. From supplement companies' unsavory marketing tactics to self-proclaimed guru's unfounded claims, most every self-respecting fitness professional has some pet peeve which the mere mention makes them cringe. For Paul San Andres, that pet peeve is in the area of program design…

A friend of mine asked me the other day what I would consider to be the most frustrating part of my job as an educator in the fitness field. After thinking about it for a second I told him that the most frustrating part of my job had to be grading the case study portion of the ISSA’s independent study test.

For those who don’t know, the ISSA offers an independent study option for it’s Certified Fitness Trainer (CFT) course, and part of that study option is 5 case studies. Case studies are where you are given a scenario for a potential client and you are asked to devise a 12-week periodized training program based on the information given and what you have learned through the course. While it intimidates some initially, most ultimately find it's really rather simple, especially if you truly are ready to be a personal trainer.

However, even among those that do pass that portion of the examination, I have noticed a disturbing trend – a large number of students/ trainers rely heavily on the 3 sets of 10 reps approach. While this style of program where you select an equal number of exercises for each bodypart and perform 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise is good, it certainly doesn’t represent the best approach to designing a program.

The 3 sets of 10 reps program got its start in the ‘40s and ‘50s in some early strength training experiments. An army surgeon named De Lorme presented some research data supporting the 3 sets of 10 reps protocol, and it became permanently etched into the collective subconscious of the fitness community. I agree that 3 sets of 10 can be effective, especially for beginners, but you have to remember that anything will be effective for a while, especially the first time you try it.

However, exercise science has come a long way since those early days, and we now know much more about the human body and the way it responds to training. In light of this newer information, the 3 sets of 10 reps approach is far from the most effective program for several reasons.

And yet, most mainstream fitness mags continue to espouse the 3 sets of 10 reps philosophy like it was not only the best way but the only way to train, and it reflects in the programs that some new students turn in. The 3 sets of 10 approach will eventually fall short for a few key reasons, and hopefully my pointing these reasons out here will save someone from having to learn them the hard way.

The most glaring problem with 3 sets of 10 for everything is that not all exercises deserve the same emphasis. Think about it – what logical reason could you give to devoting the same amount of attention to the leg extension as you do to the squat? The squat is far more functional, uses more muscle mass, burns more calories, creates a higher anabolic response, and basically gives more bang for the training buck. Wouldn’t it make sense that this exercise might deserve a little more attention than leg extensions? Yet the 3 sets of 10 approach does not take this into account, allotting equal attention to all exercises, when equal attention is obviously not deserved.

In addition, not all bodyparts deserve the same amount of volume. Your biceps are a small muscle group, why would they need as many exercises, sets and reps as your back? Also keep in mind that any pulling motion, which is involved in just about every back exercise, involves your biceps as well. That means, all told, that you are devoting twice as much attention to your biceps as you are to the large muscles of your back. That much work for a muscle group that wasn’t designed for it will eventually lead to overtraining. This is why most people find their arm development takes off when they cut back or even stop training arms completely and concentrate on basic pulling and pushing movements.

The 3 sets of 10 approach also does not allow for much as far as volume (reps and sets) and intensity (% of 1 RM being lifted) variations. Your body adapts very quickly to the training stimuli and eventually you will stop responding to those same ranges. Most people will switch their exercises and exercise order every 4-6 weeks, but to continually progress you must eventually break out of the 3 sets of 10 mold. This gets into the concept of periodization, which is beyond the scope of this article, but I wanted to take this opportunity to once again point out the importance of periodization in any programs long-term success.

So now that I’ve shot the 3 sets of 10 reps approach full of holes some of you may be wondering "what should I be doing"? If the 3 sets of 10 reps approach isn’t the best way, what can I do today to break out of that rut? Well, as you will see its really quite simple…

Before I get much further I do have to set down some different training parameters for 3 basic things that can be emphasized during a mesocycle. There are obviously many other things to train for and different methods of training for them but for the sake of giving you a practical example in this article I’m keeping it simple. These are well accepted parameters in the strength training field and I’m not going to go into the specifics behind why these parameters are what they are, you can just trust me when I say I’m not out on any limbs here.

For those of you who aren’t very trusting (and I hope most of you don’t take everything you read at face value), you can confirm these numbers by reading such fine training texts as Tudor Bompa’s Serious Strength Training, Charles Poliquin’s Poliquin Principles and Charles Staley’s The Science of Martial Arts Training. Now, on to the parameters…

Anatomical Adaptation/ Active Rest

Hypertrophy (Muscle Mass)

Absolute Strength

Now that we have those established let’s move on. There is a simple equation that can be used to construct daily workouts. It states that the when constructing a workout you must first determine what qualities (anatomical adaptation, absolute strength or hypertrophy) are being trained in that mesocycle. The qualities determine intensity, intensity determines reps, reps determine sets, sets determine how many exercises per bodypart, and number of exercises used determine what exercises are chosen. Most people will usually pick the exercises first and tailor the program around those exercises, but as you will see this is not the best way.

To give you an example let’s look at how you might construct a chest/biceps workout for workout during a hypertrophy phase. Since you know what you’re training for in this mesocycle, you can determine the intensity range you would want to use. A moderate intensity approach usually works best for hypertrophy so you should keep the intensity level in the 60%-80% of 1RM range. The exact percentage you use can differ for each individual muscle group, so try to be flexible. Along with moderate intensity, a moderate volume of work also works well for hypertrophy -- so you should keep the reps in the 6-12 range. To get the desired training effect at 6-12 reps you will need to perform a moderate amount of sets as well, in this case 4-8 for large muscle groups and 1-3 for smaller muscle groups.

If you decide on the lower end of the rep range you will want the higher end of the set range and vice versa. Let’s say we’ve narrowed it down to 6-8 reps per set. This would mean you would prescribe 8 sets for large muscle group (pectorals) and 3 sets for the small muscle group (biceps). Now that we have figured out how many sets are being done we can decide how many exercises to use per bodypart.

Conventional wisdom says to pick a variety of exercises for each bodypart to hit the muscle from all angles. This is not necessarily the best idea. Not all muscles groups posses the multiple origins and/ or insertions necessary for "muscle shaping". For example, the pectoral muscle group does have more than one origin and insertion, meaning that might make sense it to hit the this particular muscle group from more than one angle, in this case perhaps using a flat and inclined bench. What doesn’t work is using a wide grip to hit the outer pecs, close grip to hit the inner pec, ect.

Other muscle groups often associated with muscle shaping just do not have the structural qualities necessary to justify a multi- angled approach. The arms are a great example of this. It seems that most muscle shaping myths are based on arm training, yet the biceps and triceps do not have the structure necessary for this theoretical concept to work for them.

All this boils down to the fact that it is all right to simply pick one or two exercises per muscle group and hammer away on them. For the larger muscle groups make sure you pick at least one compound exercise and devote more than half the allotted sets to that exercise. Sticking with our above example, we have determined we will do 8 total sets for pecs and 3 sets for biceps. This would mean we could pick two exercises for the pecs, making sure to include at least one compound exercise, but since we only have 3 total sets for biceps it would be wise to just stick with one exercise for them.

Now lets look at how a workout would shape up using the information we gathered using the above steps. We’ve planned on doing chest and biceps on day one of our program, so our two exercises for chest could be the flat bench press and incline flyes, and for biceps we could pick preacher curls. This is one way you might arrange such a workout: