Now here's where I'm going to be a good coach and tell you what you need to hear, which is not necessarily what you'd like to be told. But it's because I honestly want you to succeed at whatever your fitness goals might be that I'm going to be straight up with you. There are way too many "experts" out there sugar coating the truth in what may be a sincere effort to encourage and motivate. But although their intentions are the best, in my opinion they end up only discouraging and de-motivating their followers. That's because people who trust and follow this "expert" advice end up believing there's something wrong with them when they can't achieve instant results with minimal effort.

But think about it logically. You can't just show up at a gym, do a few simple exercises and expect spectacular results. If it were that easy, everyone in there would look great.

That being said, you don't have to be a natural athlete to develop a great physique, although I certainly won't deny that genetics help. But what you do need is an effective fitness plan, the self discipline and self motivation to stick with it and a realistic expectation that you are going to get out of your fitness program exactly what you put into it.

If working out is going to be a social opportunity for you and you don't really care what, if any, cosmetic or true fitness gains you achieve, then it really doesn't matter what you do or how hard you work while you're at the gym. But if you have specific fitness goals that you want to achieve, you need to develop a sound plan and remain focused and committed in order to achieve your goals. But that's really no different from anything else in life, is it?

I'm not saying that you need to pump weights like crazy while sweating buckets each time you're in the gym in order to get results. But you do need to push yourself to do your best so that you're not wasting your time. Talking on the phone while doing a one handed curl on a biceps machine (as I actually saw one person do) is not pushing yourself.

We all have good days and bad days. Learn to capitalize on the good days and persevere to the best of your ability on the bad days. Over the long run this type of consistency will pay the most dividends. In fact, without consistency in terms of how often you train and how hard you train, any training benefit obtained will at best be minimal.

So if you decide, for example, that you want to train at least 30 minutes per day three times per week, then make sure you do so. And if on one particular afternoon you don't feel like going to the gym... too bad! Get your butt in there anyway! You'll get into it once you're there, and you'll feel a whole lot better about yourself afterwards.

The bottom line is that your body shape is not going to change unless your body composition changes, and your body composition is not going to change unless you stress your body enough to trigger muscular growth. This means that often (but not always) you can expect to feel a little tight and sore a day or so after your workout. (See my Basic Workout Guideline #4 regarding how to differentiate between "good" hurt and "bad" hurt.) Bear the "ouch" with pride - it's proof you're getting something out of your workout.

Quite frankly, if you're not feeling tired and perhaps a little sore after your workout, you should be. Don't kid yourself that it's no longer hurting because you're now in better shape - the better shape you're in the harder you should be able to work, and the harder you will need to work to continue improving your fitness level. Again, you don't have to sweat buckets or lift crazy weights - there are lots of ways to make your workout more intense as per Basic Workout Guideline #9 - Maximizing Your Training Efficiency.

It's not my intention to intimidate you or make you believe that working out must be all work and no fun. Nothing could be further from the truth! Whether it's the social aspect, the release of stress and pent up frustration or the thrill of challenging yourself, working out can be an enjoyable experience, and a great hobby that benefits just about every other aspect of your life.

As long as you're patient, persistent and realistic about your fitness goals, you will attain them. And there's absolutely no reason why you can't have fun along the way.

What you are ultimately trying to accomplish through your exercise program should drive program design. For example, if your goal is weight loss and overall toning, your program will of necessity be quite different than that of a competitive swimmer who is looking to improve their stroke. A body builder trains much differently than a marathon runner.

Training for a specific sport, such as swimming, tennis or baseball, for example, is quite specialized and thus completely beyond the scope of this web site. But as a general rule, sports specific training should include exercises that mimic the movement patterns of the sport and strengthen both the primary and supporting muscles involved in the movement. It should also address the antagonistic muscle groups (muscles which move a body part in the opposite direction) to avoid creating muscular imbalances within the body.

You can certainly have more than one fitness objective (i.e. you may want to both tone your body and increase your stamina and/or flexibility to do other physical activities), but the more you're trying to accomplish the more careful thought you need to put into program design. This is where professional advice can mean the difference between steady improvement and marginal change. The more fitness objectives you have, the more unique your program requirements.

Defining clear and measurable objectives up front will help you (and your fitness professional, should you chose to work with one) identify what you need to do to achieve your goals. Knowing exactly where you want to be within a specific time frame will allow you to determine the type, volume and intensity of training required to get there. You can then evaluate whether you are willing to make the required commitment in terms of time and energy. If not, or if your current lifestyle will not allow for it, then you will need to rethink your fitness strategy.

While this analysis might seem like overkill to some, taking the time up front to consider whether one's objectives are realistic and therefore obtainable will avoid potential frustration and disappointment down the road when things don't go according to plan. Failure to achieve one's goals is always hard on self esteem.

Your current fitness level must also drive program design. If you've been sedentary for years, you must of necessity start more slowly than someone who is currently more physically active, not only to prevent injury but to allow your body time to neurologically adapt to the demands of weight training, which it must do before hypertrophy (muscle growth) will occur.

Starting with lighter weights and fewer sets with longer reps will allow this adaptation to occur without overstressing your tendons, joints and ligaments. Although tendons and ligaments strengthen with training, they do not do so as quickly as muscle fibres. Therefore, to avoid tendon or ligament irritation/injury you should give them an opportunity to adapt before progressing to heavier weights that will place greater demand on them.

Your current fitness level is going to be affected by any physical disability or health issues you may have. For example, if you have a bad knee, odds are you aren't out there running marathons and indeed are likely not as mobile as you would like to be. This is going to affect your stamina in the gym, as well as limit your choice of exercises. Your physiotherapist or a personal trainer with a background in rehabilitation programs can advise which exercises will help strengthen your weaknesses as well as which exercises are to be avoided.

If you have any known health issues, you should speak to your health care professional about which exercises are best and which ones you should not do. For example, if you have high blood pressure, you should avoid raising your arms above your head. This means no overhead shoulder presses and no lying chest presses. Instead, chest presses should be done standing either off the wall or using exercise bands, or seated using the seated fly machine available at most gyms.

To successfully integrate working out into your current lifestyle, you will need to give some careful thought as to how much total time you can realistically devote to your training. Unless your training plan fits with your current lifestyle and pre-existing time commitments, you're going to become discouraged and be disappointed in yourself when you are forced to start skipping workouts.

You will need to consider when, how often and for how long you can train each week, and build your program around that. It may be that upon careful reflection you'll decide you simply won't be able to devote as much time as you need in order to achieve your fitness goals as quickly as you'd like. If that's the case, then you'll need to adjust your goals to be more in line with what you can realistically accomplish. It may therefore take longer to get to where you want to be, but it's better to know and plan for that up front than to set yourself up for disappointment.

You may find that based on your existing schedule it's not practical for you to go to a gym, given the operating hours of the gym(s) in your area. Or the gym might be too crowded during your preferred time slot, so that you're waiting too long to get the machines or work stations you need. If rearranging your schedule is not possible, then by investing in a few pieces of equipment as outlined in the Basic Workout Equipment section of this site, you can gain a whole lot of flexibility by working out at home.

Although you may be a busy person (most of us are these days!), you can always find the time to squeeze in your workouts if you're truly committed to doing so. My partner and I don't relish the thought of getting up a 4:00 each morning to go downstairs and pump iron. But we do it because that's the time that works best for us, and because we're not prepared to live with the potential health ramifications of being unfit, particularly at our age.

There are two time considerations here - the length of time for each individual workout and the number of weeks your program should last before you change it up.

Individual workout times
Shorter, more frequent workouts will allow you to both get in and out of the gym faster and train more intensely while you're there. If your workouts are too long, you will of necessity start pacing yourself near the end, thus rendering the latter part of your workout less effective.

Several studies have shown that training longer than 45 minutes at a time can raise cortisol (stress hormone) to unhealthy levels that persist for hours after the workout is over. Not allowing enough rest between strenuous workouts can also result in chronically elevated cortisol levels.

According to Dr. Natasha Turner, a Naturopathic Doctor and author of The Hormone Diet, chronically high cortisol is associated with a decrease in muscle enhancing growth hormone, DHEA and testosterone. It also causes muscle breakdown and suppresses both immune and thyroid function. That's why over-exercising can lead to muscle loss, more frequent colds and flus, poor recovery after exercise and slower gains from your workout efforts.

So you should plan your workouts to be no longer than 45 minutes, and allow for adequate rest between workouts so that your body can fully recover. Recovery time will vary by individual, so start by training no more than 3-4 days per week and see how you feel. As your level of fitness improves you may be able to increase this to 5 days, should you so desire. However, for the average person who is looking to maintain good health and well-being, training 3-4 days per week will be quite adequate.

Training program duration
Your actual workout program (i.e. the specific exercises you choose to do and the days you choose to do them) should be followed for a period of time and then your training routine should change.

That's because your body quickly adapts to the demands you place upon it, becoming more efficient at doing the same exercise as time goes on. When this happens you are no longer getting the same training benefit from your workout, regardless of your training objective. For example, if your goal is weight loss, a more efficient body burns fewer calories when doing a given exercise (unless of course you change the variables, i.e. by increasing the weight or number of reps). And if your goal is to put on muscle size, a more efficient muscle no longer needs to continue growing to lift the same amount of weight for the same number of reps.

The average training program therefore usually lasts between 8-12 weeks, depending on the individual's rate of adaptation and overall training objective(s). After that time, the program needs to be changed up in order to shock the muscles into growing again in order to adapt to the new demands being placed upon them. The new training program should build upon the last, so that as time goes on each 8-12 week program becomes progressively more challenging.

For those women who are reading this and thinking to themselves "but I don't want big muscles", I assure you that you don't need big muscles in order to achieve your overall health and weight loss goals (and indeed unless you're using anabolic steroids or are a genetic freak, it's quite difficult for women to build muscle size because they lack the necessary hormones in sufficient quantities to do so). But you do need some muscle on your body, for the following reasons:

• Muscle mass makes it easier to maintain a healthy body weight. There are two ways to control weight gain - by either eating fewer calories or burning more calories. The more muscle you have on your body, the greater your metabolic rate, which is the number of calories your body requires each day to sustain itself. So the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn on a daily basis, even when you're sleeping! You don't need a large amount of muscle to benefit from increased calorie burning; every ounce of muscle contributes. So combining working out with calorie control through diet will make it easier to achieve and maintain your weight loss goal that it would be through dieting alone.
• The only way to actually change the shape of your body is to tighten and tone your muscles. For example, if you are currently pear shaped and you chose to lose weight through diet alone, you will simply become a smaller pear. However, by tightening and toning your abs, butt and quads, your body will start to look less like a pear and more like the traditional hourglass figure where the waist nips in and the hips and bust are more evenly sized.
• A stronger body allows you to do more with less risk of injury. Physically fit people can do more things and will remain mobile longer than unfit people. The simple daily tasks such as making your bed, vacuuming or perhaps carrying your child up the stairs are much easier and less stressful on the body. How many people do you know who would like to engage in certain recreational activities with their friends (even if it's just going for a walk in the park with their dog) but are unable to do so for health reasons? Perhaps you're unfortunate enough to be one of them. Unless you are physically disabled, combining an effective training program with sensible weight loss will often be enough to give you the functionality you seek.
• Weight bearing exercises strengthen bone density and thus reduce the risk of developing osteoporosis as you age. One of the most significant consequences of osteoporosis is fracture of the vertebra, hip, wrist, pelvis or rib, which can lead to lost mobility, other medical complications and even death.

It's not necessarily the size of your muscles that is important, but rather their overall stamina and strength. If you do not want large muscles, stamina and strength can still be developed using lighter weights and longer sets.

Most people generally think of a workout program as a series of exercises that are performed in a specific order on specific days, which are then repeated for a set time period which constitutes approximately 8-12 weeks.

However, as my Coach is fond of saying, a workout program is much more than a collection of exercises. To be truly effective, a program must incorporate exercises that are carefully selected and properly sequenced to address everything we've already discussed, such as your fitness objective, fitness level, lifestyle, health issues and limitations, etc. Each new program must be design to build upon the last to ensure you continue to make consistent gains that are in line with your overall goals.

Like most other things in life, poor planning will lead to poor performance. That's why if you can afford to hire a properly qualified trainer or coach who understands muscle physiology and how to write effective training programs to meet an individual's specific objectives, you really should do so.

Right now you might be thinking that lots of people work out at a gym without a personal trainer, so what's the big deal? The answer depends on how seriously you view your health, particularly if you have pre-existing health issues. If there was something that needed fixing on your car, would you tinker with it yourself until you finally got it right or would you take it to an expert to be repaired correctly the first time?

Every body is a little different and depending on occupation and lifestyle habits, your body may be a little (or a lot) out of its natural alignment. Running, swimming, lifting weights or practically any other type of exercise can perpetuate that imbalance without you being aware of it. A poorly designed program can also create muscular imbalances where previously there were none. On the other hand, a well-planned program will lead to more even muscle development, which avoids both postural imbalances and risk of injury, whether that be inside or outside the gym.

A fitness expert can observe and correct imbalances you don't even know you have. For example, stand in a relaxed stance and let your arms fall to your sides naturally. Now look at the direction your palms are facing. If they are squarely facing your body, congratulations, your back and chest are likely evenly balanced in terms of muscular symmetry. But people who are hunched forward working on computers all day tend to have tight chest muscles and overstretched back muscles, which causes their shoulders to turn inwards and their palms to face behind them.

Now if a person with this type of imbalance goes to the gym and spends more time working their chest muscles than they do the muscles of their back, they will unknowingly make the problem worse. Stronger chest muscles (tighter muscles are stronger than overstretched ones) will stretch the back muscles even further, eventually leading to chronic tightness and discomfort in the upper shoulder area (ever experienced that burning feeling after sitting in front of a computer too long?) and perhaps even headaches as well. But the odds are that people with Upper Extremities Postural Distortion (UEPD) will prefer to work their chest over their back since quite often our favourite exercises are those we feel stronger at.

However, if you really can't afford a trainer, all is not lost. By keeping the following pointers in mind you can still develop a safe and effective training program:

• Though you may have your "favourite" exercises, don't spend the majority of your gym time doing them. Train all your muscle groups equally so that you don't exacerbate any existing muscular imbalances or inadvertently create new ones. Your main muscle groups include:
• Chest (pecs)
• Back (traps, rhomboids and lats)
• Shoulders (3 distinct areas: anterior (front), lateral (side), posterior (rear))
• Arms (biceps & triceps)
• Legs (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves)
• Core (all the muscles which stabilize your skeletal structure and protect your vital organs, including abdominals, obliques, lower back, hip and butt muscles)
• Don't always do the same exercise to work a specific body part. Different exercises will work a muscle group differently, so varying it up will result in better overall muscle development. For example, regular biceps curls hit the biceps muscles differently than do hammer curls.
• Consider combining exercises for greater cardio effect and increased training efficiency. For example, you can train opposing muscle groups such as chest and then back, or biceps and then triceps, by working them one right after the other as a single exercise "set". You can also train primary and supporting muscle groups together (i.e. back and biceps - biceps generally work in conjunction with the back for "pulling" motions).
• If you have any pre-existing health issues, check with your health care professional regarding which types of exercises you should not do. There may be specific strengthening exercises you can and should be doing to minimize or perhaps even correct the problem. For example, a visit to the Back Institute years ago provided me with the tools I needed to fix my lower back issues so that I was able to banish my lower back pain permanently.
• If you're new to working out, stick to the basics for your first few programs. It takes a while to train your muscles to learn to respond efficiently, so making things overly complicated will provide no additional benefit, and indeed could lead to injury.

The number of sets you do for each muscle group and the number of reps within each set depends in large part on what you're trying to accomplish. There are different aspects to fitness - power, endurance, strength and speed - and each is developed differently.

A detailed discussion of each is beyond the scope of this web site, but as a general rule, power is developed by lifting medium weights explosively, while strength training is characterized by slower, heavier lifts. Strength training is usually done for larger muscle groups only (i.e. chest) as risk of injury is greater when done for the smaller muscle groups (i.e. biceps). Endurance training generally involves lower weights for longer sets, which may or may not be explosive in nature. Speed training includes practicing moving and accelerating faster, and is quite often sport-specific.

However, as a general rule, if you're looking to develop larger muscles (but not necessarily stronger ones), lift heavier weights for fewer reps (i.e. 6-8). If you're looking to build muscle endurance, then lift more medium sized weights for longer reps (i.e. 10-15). If you're looking for toning only, lift lighter weights for 15-20 reps.

Without getting overly complicated, here's a relatively simple strategy you can use to determine your total sets per body part:

1. Estimate the total amount of time you have available to work out each week and divide by 6 (the number of main muscle groups you need to work - see Exercise Choice and Sequencing section). The resulting number is the total amount of time you have to spend on each muscle group, assuming you wish to work each muscle group equally. (There may be situations where that's not always the case, but let's not overly complicate things.)
2. Based on whether your goal is size, endurance or toning, establish how many reps you are going to be doing per set.
3. Allowing 1-2 minutes rest between sets, figure out how many sets you can do within the time period you have allocated for each body part. (You will most likely need to experiment a bit before you can accurately establish how long it will take you to do the required number of reps per set and how long you will need to rest between sets.)
4. Next, decide how many different exercises you wish to do in the time you have available. As a general rule, you should do a minimum of 2 sets of each exercise, and 3-4 if you want to adequately tire the muscle in a specific plane of motion.
5. Based on the number of days you can be at the gym each week, will you be able to hit each muscle group once or twice per week? If only once per week, then choose which day you want to work a particular body part and allocate the total number of sets to that one day. If twice, then split the total sets between two days.

As noted in Program Design Fundamental #6 above, each new program should build upon the last in order to make consistent gains in terms of your overall training goal. This generally means changing your exercises for each program so that your body is forced to adapt to the new and different demands being placed on it.

It can sometimes be hard to let go of "favourite" exercises, but note that you don't have to do so permanently. You can always include the same exercises in future programs, progressing them by changing variables such as amount of weight, number of reps, speed of execution, etc. But for best results, don't include the same exercises in consecutive programs.

Programs can be progressed in various ways:

• Want more size? Then reduce the number of reps and increase the resistance of weights or bands - i.e. go from body squats to dumbbell squats.
• Want more definition (i.e. be more toned)? Then increase number of reps - but note you have to have some muscle there to tone! In other words, doing 50 reps with 2 lb weights is basically a waste of your time. You'd be much better off doing 20-25 reps with 5 lb weights.
• Want more flexibility? Then increase your range of motion - i.e. if you're doing lunges then step out further.
• Want more "functional" strength? Then incorporate more functional training exercises into your program.
• Ideally you would incorporate all of these elements into your training routine, but not necessarily at same time for each exercise. Instead, as you recycle an exercise in a future program, choose one of these elements and focus on it for the duration of the program.

How you progress your exercises will depend on your training objective(s). If cosmetic fitness is your goal (i.e. you want to look great in a bikini), then focus on progressions that have both a toning and cardio aspect. If you want larger muscles, then focus on lifting heavier weights. If you want to be functionally strong, then allocate more of your training time to functional training as opposed to resistance training.