Getting someone to build me a gym/ weight lifting program

[TheDreamCrusher]

I have a twice weekly weight training program that I have been following for a year which I am now totally bored of, and have not increased my weight load. I have also not been the gym for a couple of months due to family illnesses and issues.

I need a new weight program, and I would like someone to scope it out for me, then review it in 3 months, and build on results. However, I don't want to get a personal trainer to come the gym with me. I have had them before and I don't enjoy it. It's a lot of chat, and not much lifting IMO. They never give me challenging weights.

My gym/ weight work is to meet a few goals in order of priority;

1. Support my running (3 times a week, and I enter 10K and half marathons) by building leg strength
2. Building all over strength, muscle and toning up
3. Work on upper body strength as can hardly lift anything over my head

The weight work is to purely build strength and tone up, as I do other exercise.

How can I find someone to work with me to build a program and then update it every 3-6 months. Do I need to go local, or should I look for an online coach?

It sounds like the sort of personal training you had before wasn't right for you, but I still think a PT would have the skillset you need, it's just you'd need to be explicit about the sort of support you want. You can definitely get a PT just to design you a programme without having regular sessions in the gym with them.

On progression, I find it's useful to have a programme that automatically progresses your weights, e.g. it specifies a certain rep range and you increase the weight every time you get to the top of that range. So if you're doing 8-12 reps, you would start with a weight where you can do 8 reps. When you can do 12 reps, you go up by a kilo or two (depending on the weights available) and so on.

Might sound odd, but have you tried putting this into ChatGPT? Just try and give it as much info as can about what weights/reps have been doing and what goals are. Worth a try and you might be surprised what it can actually come up with.

I have an online coach. He writes my programme. I send him videos for him to comment on. We also message all the time as he coaches me rather than just writing a programmme and commenting on form. So you could get an online coach. I don’t think you could prescribe though that they only update your programme every x months. I’d expect them to use their expertise to know when to do that to meet my needs

I think you need an online coach. But I'm perplexed about you following a programme but not increasing your weights? That sounds odd.

There are also books that outline strength principles for you to programme for yourself. Try Mike Israetel (his YouTube is hilarious!) or Stacy Sims & her collaborators - I think it's a book called "Power Happens."

There's the really simple 5 x 5 technique - I think it's something like: you do three times a week in whatever pattern you like, you lift 5 sets of 5, and each week add 5 kilos or whatever. I'd probably only add 1 kilo per week in that sort of pattern.

I work with a PT several times a week - it's a big financial, time & energy commitment but it's allowing me to stay excessively fit and mobile as I head towards 70 (I'm still working in a pretty high-powered job), and we chat but it never gets in the way of lifting very heavy weights - hundreds of kilos on sled pushes, over 100 kilos in my deadlifts, and bodyweight back squats.

I can second ChatGPT. It came up with a great regime for me and I really enjoy it

I tried using ChatGPT myself and as good as I first thought, it just doesn't bring the accountability that I know I need to stay consistent. Once I get started I'm good to go but sometimes that's harder than the workout itself. I decided to just try an online trainer for one month and if I didn't enjoy it I could always stop but I don't think I'll ever go back to not having my lovely online coach now. I would highly recommend doing this if you sound similar to me