How to create a workout plan - a builder that picks your split.
To create a workout plan, start with the number of days you can train, then let that number choose the split. This workout plan builder shows how to create a workout plan in three inputs: set your training days, your goal and your experience, and it lays out a matching weekly split - session by session, with the movement focus and rep range for each day. A structured starting point you can send, follow, or hand to a client.
build your weekly plan
your plan
Upper / Lower
| Day | Session | What you train |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | Upper | Horizontal push and pull, vertical push and pull, arms |
| Tue | Lower | Squat, hinge, single-leg, calves and core |
| Thu | Upper | Horizontal push and pull, vertical push and pull, arms |
| Fri | Lower | Squat, hinge, single-leg, calves and core |
Fill each session with one exercise per movement pattern, hit the rep range for your goal, and add a rep or a little load week to week. The days shown are one sensible layout - what matters is spacing hard sessions so each muscle recovers before it is trained again. This is a structured starting point, not medical advice.
the short answer
To create a workout plan, set three things in order: how many days you train, one primary goal, and a rep range that matches it. The days decide the split - 2 to 3 days suits full body, 4 days suits upper/lower, 5 to 6 days suits push/pull/legs. The goal sets the reps - roughly 3 to 6 for strength, 6 to 12 for muscle, 8 to 15 for general fitness. Then fill each session with one exercise per movement pattern and progress week to week, aiming for around 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle per week.
The order you make the decisions in is the whole trick.
Most workout plans fall apart because they are built inside out - someone picks favourite exercises first, then tries to squeeze them into a week that does not fit their life. Build it the other way and the plan almost writes itself. Start with the one honest number: how many days a week you will actually train, week in and week out, not in a motivated first fortnight. That single input decides more than any exercise choice, because it sets how often each muscle can be trained and therefore which split makes sense.
Second, name one primary goal. Building muscle, getting stronger, general fitness and fat loss all lift weights, but they weight the dials differently: strength lives in low reps and long rest, muscle in moderate reps and more total sets, general fitness in a broader rep range, and fat loss keeps the lifting to hold muscle while a calorie deficit does the actual fat loss. One goal keeps the plan coherent. Two goals fighting for the same sessions is how plans stall. Third, let the goal set the rep range and rest, which is what the builder fills in for you.
Only then do exercises enter, and they enter as movement patterns, not names. Each session gets one exercise per pattern it targets - a squat, a hinge, a horizontal push, a vertical pull, and so on - so the plan is complete without being crowded. The last step is the one people skip: write in how you will progress. A plan with no way to add reps, load or sets over the weeks is a workout, not a plan. If you want the deeper coaching version of this method, the guide on how to create a client workout program walks through exercise selection and progression in full.
Which split the builder picks, and why.
The split is a function of frequency. A muscle grows when it is trained often enough and hard enough to recover from, so the job of a split is to hit each muscle two to three times a week without stacking sessions the body cannot recover from. At two or three days, full body is the honest answer: it trains everything every session, so even three days a week reaches each muscle three times. At four days, an upper/lower split lets each half get more attention while still hitting twice a week. At five or six days, push/pull/legs comes into its own - run twice over six days, it gives each muscle two focused sessions with room for real volume.
Notice the builder does not reward you for adding days you will not use. A three-day full-body plan you finish beats a six-day plan you abandon by Wednesday, and it is not close. The split label also matters far less than the volume underneath it. For most people, roughly 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle per week is the effective range for growth, and any of these splits can deliver that - the split just decides how those sets are spread across the week. If you want to sanity-check the total your plan produces, the weekly training volume calculator sums hard sets per muscle so you can see which are under the floor.
For the reasoning behind each option, how to choose a workout split lays out the decision by days, goal and recovery, and workout splits explained covers each type in depth. The builder above is the fast version of both.
From a sketched split to a plan a client follows.
For a coach, this builder is a fast way to frame a client's week before you fill in the detail: set the days they can train, their goal and level, and you have the skeleton to hang exercises on in seconds. It is a starting point, not the deliverable. The real work is turning that skeleton into a plan the client actually does - the right exercises for their equipment and history, the loads, the progression, and a way to deliver it that does not die in a forgotten PDF or a spreadsheet that drifts out of date within a week. For the nutrition half of the same client's program, how to build a client meal plan walks through the parallel process.
That is where a one-off tool hits its ceiling. With ten or twenty clients on their own plans, you need the plan to be a live program, not a document. Inside Coachway's workout builder, you build the split once, save it to a template library, and assign it across clients in a few clicks - the client trains from it in a branded app, logs each set, and the sets they actually complete flow back to you. Built from working with 150 online coaches over 6+ years, it is designed so the plan you write and the training a client does stay the same thing. The coach dashboard is in English; the client app is available in English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and German.
Build a plan once, assign it across your whole client list, and see the sets clients actually log.
EUR 0 charged today - a card is required to start, and you can cancel anytime under Billing.Frequently asked questions.
How do I create a workout plan from scratch?
Work top down. First pick how many days a week you can genuinely train, because that number decides the split more than anything else. Then set one primary goal and pick a rep range to match it - roughly 3 to 6 reps for strength, 6 to 12 for muscle, 8 to 15 for general fitness. Choose the split the days point to (2 to 3 days suits full body, 4 days suits upper/lower, 5 to 6 days suits push/pull/legs), fill each session with one exercise per movement pattern, then write in a way to progress week to week. This builder does the split step for you and hands you the session focuses to fill.
How many days a week should a workout plan have?
Match the days to the life the plan has to survive, not the ideal week. Two or three sessions is enough to build a solid base and hit every muscle two to three times a week on a full-body layout. Four days lets you split into upper and lower. Five or six days suits a push/pull/legs plan for someone who trains for muscle and has the recovery for it. A three-day plan that gets done beats a six-day plan that gets abandoned by Wednesday.
What is the best workout split?
There is no single best split - the best one is the split your training days can support. Full body wins at 2 to 3 days because each muscle still gets trained often enough. Upper/lower is the natural fit at 4 days. Push/pull/legs comes into its own at 6 days when you run it twice. The split label matters far less than the weekly volume underneath it: for most people roughly 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle per week is the range that drives growth, whichever split delivers it.
How many exercises should each workout have?
Four to seven working exercises per session covers most people. A beginner does well with four or five, keeping the focus on one movement per pattern so form has room to develop. An intermediate can carry five or six, and an advanced lifter chasing more volume can run six or seven. Past that, sessions get long, fatigue outruns quality, and the last exercises stop earning their place. This builder suggests a range for each level so you fill sessions without padding them.
How do I turn a workout plan into a plan clients actually follow?
The plan is the easy part - delivery is what decides whether it gets done. A plan that lives in a PDF or a spreadsheet drifts out of date and out of sight within a week. Coaches who run more than a handful of clients build the plan once, assign it from a template library, and deliver it in an app the client trains from, logs in, and checks off. Coachway is built for exactly that: the same split you sketch here becomes a live program a client follows on their phone, with the sets they actually log flowing back to you.
The split recommendations are the standard, widely taught mapping of training days to a productive layout, not a fixed law - adjust for equipment, injury history and recovery. This tool is general fitness information, not medical advice.
Take the plan further: workout programming principles for coaches covers how the pieces fit into a training block, what training volume is explains the hard-set count the plan is built around, and how to choose a workout split is the long-form version of the choice this builder makes for you.
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This builder sketches a single week. Coachway - built from working with 150 online coaches over 6+ years - lets you build a program once, save it to a template library, assign it across your whole client list, and read the sets clients actually log, so the plan you write and the training they do stay the same thing.
