Lauren is a 32-year-old women who weighs 166 lbs and has never participated in resistance training. She participated in an initial fitness assessment and wants your advice about starting a muscular fitness program at your exercise facility. Design a resistance training routine for Lauren to help her achieve moderate gains in both muscular strength and endurance.


Answer: First, we design the resistance training routine according to the FITT principle: she should be exercising at least 2 non-consecutive days per week, 1-3 sets per exercise, 8-10 exercises, resting 30 seconds to 2 minutes between exercises, and targeting large muscle groups with her exercises. When she first starts, we’re going to begin with more weight training machines versus free weights, as she’s a beginner, and free weights may be more dangerous. We’ll prescribe machines such as a horizontal chest press, lat pull-down, leg press. As she progresses with her experience lifting weights, we will prescribe more and more free weight exercises under the careful guidance of a spotter, such as squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, barbell rows, etc. To achieve gains in both muscular strength and endurance, we’ll suggest alternating days targeted for hypertrophy (1-2 sets, 10 exercises, low resting times e.g. 30 seconds, high number of repetitions, and lower weight) versus muscular strength (1-4 sets, 8 exercises, longer resting times e.g. 2 minutes, lower reps and high weight).