7 Components of an Effective Strength Training Workout

Did you know there is a recipe to make an effective workout? It’s a fairly simple recipe. All you need are 7 ingredients.

Don’t worry, keep reading and I’ll tell you everything I know!

If you are new here, you’re probably wondering ‘why should I listen to you?’

Well, I am Nate Johnson, the owner of Steel Strength Training, and we’ve helped over 1,000 everyday men and women transform their lives through strength training over the last 10 years, so I know a thing or two about building an effective workout that will give you great results.

Special Ingredients

1. A Balanced Program
2. The Right Amount of Training Volume
3. Good Form
4. Full Range of Motion
5. Training Close to Failure
6. A Focus on Progression
7. BONUS – Keep Reading

A Balanced Program

Having an effective workout is about more than having ONE good workout. Most people are stuck with their health and fitness because they are just exercising rather than training.

Exercising meaning they just go to the gym and do random things with no rhyme or reason. When you just exercise it doesn’t really matter if you go everyday, you won’t get the biggest benefit from the gym as you could from training.

Now, of course you’d be more fit than someone who just sits on the couch, but training will give you far better returns.

Training is when you set up a balanced plan where every workout builds upon the last one until you have built something truly amazing. That’s what we do at Steel – craft you an amazing plan that is going to utilize your time in the gym the best.

If you are going to the gym, might as well get the most out of it by having a great plan. Part of having a great plan is it being balanced to where you hit the whole body in roughly the same amounts.

Now, if you have an injury or other reason you can’t necessarily train a body part as much as others, that’s different. You’ll have a slightly unbalanced plan, but everything else will still be trained roughly the same amount.

The Right Amount of Training Volume

There’s a lot of ways to measure your training volume or the amount of work you are doing, but we measure it in number of hard sets. Hard sets have to have good form, full range of motion, and be taken close to failure.

You want to do enough sets per body part, per workout, per week, that are going to drive progress but not overwork your muscles where they can’t recover.

There’s lots of information about this topic – I even made a video covering just this topic itself talking about how 5 sets per week per muscle group could be a magic number. Check it out HERE.

There is a sweet spot, not too much or too little, just right.

Good Form

This really could be the first point.

If your form sucks, this is the best way to stack the odds up that you will get injured. Getting injured is the fastest way to not get the results you want.

Your muscles may hurt while they are working – that’s totally normal – but you want your joints and rest of your body to feel good. Learning good form will protect your joints and allow you to realize whether you are leading yourself to injury or success.

Good form is ESSENTIAL! Without it, you might as well kiss your goals goodbye.

Full Range of Motion

Once your form is good and before you worry about adding weight, think about full range of motion.

Your muscles get super dialed in and respond WAY better to a workout when you take the movement through full range of motion.

Trust me, you will ‘feel the burn’ when you do this. Even though your muscles will get tired, do not ever stray from using full range of motion. This is by far, the best way to get the best stimulus for your body.

Training Close to Failure

This ingredient comes AFTER you have mastered good form and ALWAYS train with a full range of motion.

True mechanical failure means you literally can’t move the weight or bar another inch. I didn’t say you had to train TO failure but CLOSE to failure – 2-3 reps shy of failure is the sweet spot.

I will say, I don’t like seeing people going to failure on squats, deadlift, or bench press just because I don’t like seeing people fall out on our floors.

Everything else though, if you never hit failure, you may not know if you are training hard enough. This step is where a lot of people drop the ball.

I have seen this happen countless times in the gym with clients. Here’s an example:

Let’s say someone is training a movement 3 sets of 8 with 75 pounds. On their third set I say, ‘okay, do as many as you can on this last set instead of just 8.’ Some people can only do 9, 10, or 11 reps which means 8 is the perfect number for them!

Others do 15, 20, 25 reps and I’m like okay we just wasted our time on the other two sets, but that’s okay we’ll go up next time.

If you’ve never trained to failure, you don’t know what it’s like and you are missing out on valuable gains! You are capable of WAY more than you think you are!

A Focus on Progression

If you are training close to failure, you are more than likely going to be lifting more weight over time – aka, getting stronger.

If you have all the ingredients listed before this, you are going to progress your weights in general. It’s just how getting stronger works.

For my workouts, I keep a notebook where I log my weights and rep counts for every exercise. It’s very intentional. I look back to a previous workout to see what weight and rep count I used for the exercise I am about to do. In my head I am thinking, ‘okay, I’m going to try and beat this by one rep or a little more weight.’

All of this of course is not sacrificing form, full range of motion, or going close to failure.

You also CANNOT compare your journey to other peoples’! Your progression may take more time than someone else, but it’s still progression!

I used to do this when I first started working out. I brought a buddy of mine in and he was lifting heavier than me within two weeks and I was so frustrated. But, I figured out that it was MY journey and I was becoming the best version of myself so it didn’t matter what everyone else around me was doing.

I encourage you to focus on beating only your former self, no one else.

Enjoy Your Workout

Technically, you can hate your workout and still get great results.

The best way to ensure you are consistently showing up and working hard is to enjoy your workout.

Find a trainer, a gym, a workout partner, a playlist, an exercise, a nutrition plan, a workout outfit, whatever it is that you enjoy! This is going to make you want to show up and train hard.

When you like doing something, or feel good doing it, you will keep up with it!

Wrap Up

So, what do you need to make an effective strength training workout?

1. Balanced & Intentional Program
2. Right Amount of Volume per Muscle Group
3. Good Form
4. Full Range of Motion
5. Training Close to Failure
6. Focus on Progression
7. A Workout You Enjoy

That’s all folks! There is the basis of what you need to make a plan that will get you amazing results that last!

If this sounds amazing, but you would like someone to help you achieve this, Steel Strength is for you! We have specialized workouts tailored to you with a nutrition plan and certified trainers that are there for you every step of the way!

Click here, fill out the form, and we will be in contact with you within 24 hours to schedule a consultation call to discuss what your goals are!

There’s no time to waste!