I've seen a lot of posts on TRP and askTRP about lifting and why it's important but I have not seen anything on how to actually develop a program with goals in mind for your current level. I've taken a lot from this sub and I have benefited tremendously so this will be my attempt at giving back to the community. Also, I know their are fitness subs but I don't know how many subscribers visit those subs as I don't.

Disclaimer: I am not a personal trainer and don't have any related degrees. Most of what follows is procured from "Practical Programming" by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. The book goes into great depth about the fundamentals for you to develop your own program while providing several example routines depending on your lifting experience (as determined by the amount of time it takes to recover from homeostatic disruption induced from lifting). For the sake brevity, I will provide an overview of key points so I highly suggest picking up the book for a greater analysis (although it can be found online, support the author).

Foundation:

To begin, there are two important factors to keep in mind when programming: (1) your level of experience, i.e., novice, intermediate, advanced, or elite; and (2) your goal, e.g., mass, strength, speed, or power. Note that a novice's goal will be limited by their experience, which will be discussed infra.

The authors provide a nifty chart (which can also be found online: http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards.htm) to help determine a person's experience level based on the weight they can lift for a particular exercise, e.g., squat, in relation to their body weight ("bw").

Under the single-factor model of training, there are three routes a training program can take, only one being beneficial. See Selye's Theory on General Adaption Syndrome.

1. Too little stress (no progress) - No disruption to homeostasis > no adaption > no performance gain

2. Appropriate stress (progress) - Disruption of homeostasis > favorable adaption > performance gain

3. Too much stress (loss of progress) - Disruption of homeostasis > adaptive capacity overwhelmed > performance loss, i.e., overtraining.

What is required for the disruption in homeostasis is an overload--the magnitude of work required to cause an adaption to spur progress--and in order to benefit from this overload, adequate time for recovery is necessary. Without sufficient time to recover, a trainee may overtrain causing regression.

There are three stages of overtraining:

(1) Fatigue - a reduction of the force-production capacity of a muscle.

(2) Overreaching - the cumulative effects of a series of workouts characterized by a short-term decrease in performance, feelings of fatigue, depressed mood, pain, sleep disturbances and other effects that require up to two weeks to recover from. May also, in the short-term, decrease testosterone and increase cortisol.

Note: fatigue and overreaching are good for the trainee as it causes a disruption in homeostasis and easily recovered from. A novice trainee on the right program won't feel the effects of either since recovery is rapid, and these two stages of overtraining are planned for in intermediate and advanced training programs (disruption is necessary for growth).

(3) Overtraining - the cumulative result of relentless high-volume or high-intensity training without sufficient recovery that results in the exhaustion of the body's ability to recover and adapt. Overtraining occurs when performance does not recover within one reduced-load training cycle. This is what you don't want.

Without getting into details, recovery requires adequate sleep, hydration, protein, calories, vitamins and minerals, and fatty acids.

Training Goals:

Strength - measurement of the ability of a muscle to exert force.

Speed - amount of time it takes an object to move a given distance.

Power - ability to exert force rapidly (how heavy and how fast?).

Mass - hypertrophy and size (strength is also increased as a result--bigger muscles mean more efficient leverage).

Program Basics:

Repetitions - a repetition scheme should be designed for achieving specific goals because different reps produce different adaptions.

(a) Strength - lower reps with heavy weights (e.g., 1-3 reps at 90-100% of 1 rep max ("RM").

(b) Hypertrophy - high reps with less weight (e.g., 8-12 reps at 65-80% 1RM)

(c) Power - moderate reps performed at max velocity (e.g., 3-5 reps at max velocity with loads of 50-75% 1RM).

Sets - Work sets should be designed to produce a specific result and achieve a training objective. Multiple sets are required and depends on the trainees level of experience and rep scheme used, e.g., 5x5, 5x10, 8x3. Sets can be progressive (increasing in weight every set) or sets across (weight staying the same). Warm-up sets are light and integral preparatory work prior to the work sets. They prepare the tissue and motor pathway for the work sets, and as such, they should not fatigue or interfere with work sets.

Rest - Varies with the goal of training. Strength training requires greater of rest 3-7 minutes depending on factors such as, intensity, fatigue, injury status, etc. for adequate recovery to complete each set. For hypertrophy, rests should be around 45 seconds. There is is an apparent correlation between lactic acid production from resistance training, hormonal status and increases in muscle mass, and the shorter rest is best for maintaining this relationship. Note that very little to no rest is needed between warm-up sets as they should not be producing any fatigue and are designed to facilitate the work sets.

Frequency of workouts depends on level of ability, fitness, time constraints, motivation, body weight, and goals. Compare full body and split routine programs.

Exercise Selection - The most important consideration should be the functional application of an exercise to the training objective. Exercises that are virtually applicable to all goals: squat, press, deadlift, bench, clean/power clean, jerk, snatch/power snatch, chins or pull-ups.

Do the most important exercises first, and as a general rule, the most technical exercises. Important is relative and will depend on your level of experience and goals. On a training day, a novice should always squat first as the primary concern is basic strength. Assistance exercises are always done after the major compound lifts. Intermediate and advanced lifters will have specific goals in mind and will plan lifts accordingly. For example, if power is the goal, the Olympic lifts will be performed first.

Experience Levels:

The Novice: Because this trainee lifts weights that are light relative to his genetic potential for strength and power, the rate of recovery following a training session is rapid. This trainee recovers within 24-72 hours of a training session. In other words, this trainee can lift heavy on Monday and be ready to lift heavy again on Wednesday. Massive size gains won't be attained at this level as most of the adaption is neurological rather than muscular: your body becomes more efficient at firing and recruiting neurons associated with the lift. The programming for a novice trainee is linear progression.

Examples - Starting Strength and Strong Lifts 5x5. Both programs follow a linear progression as weights are increased work out to workout (I won't go into detail about these two particular programs as a plethora of information can be found online and in their respective books). This is also why the goal for a novice trainee is limited. Because progress is made rapidly, the trainee will see gains in size, strength, and power.

The Intermediate: This is where a trainee can begin to pick and choose exercises and goals. For example, a judo practitioner would incorporate cleans, snatches, and speed sets into his program to develop power and explosiveness whereas a person looking to put on size will probable do a split routine focusing on hypertrophy. This trainee continues with a linear progression program; however, it is no longer workout to workout, the progress is weekly. At this stage, the trainee begins to walk the line of training and over training as enough work has to be done to cause a disruption in homeostasis with sufficient time to recover.

Examples - Madecow 5x5, The Starr Model, The Split Routine, and The Texas Method. As an example I will discuss The Texas Method because it's the program I used, which involves a volume day on Mondays, a light day on Wednesdays, and an intensity day on Fridays. The progression remains linear in that progress is made Monday to Monday and Friday to Friday. In other words, when all the prescribed sets and reps on Monday are accomplished, the weights for the following Monday are increased. There is a lot of play with this program, Mondays can be 5x5 (5 sets of 5 reps), 5x10, 4x6, 8x3, etc. and Friday's work outs can be 1x5, 1x3, 1x2, 1x1, speed sets, etc. as long as volume is the focus on Monday and intensity is the focus on Friday. Progress on a program such as this can last for a while.

Advanced: A trainee can be considered advanced when weekly progress is no longer made. At this level, a disruption and the subsequent recovery can take greater than a month (the training load to produce adaption is high and the time to recover from said adaption is also longer). The trainee has stepped into the realm of periodization, no longer does a day off (The Notice) or several days off (The Intermediate) become sufficient to recover from a disruption in homeostasis. At this point, a couple weeks of decreased load in volume is required to dissipate fatigue.

Examples - The Pyramid Model and Stronglifts Advanced. Stronglifts Advanced is the program I used and is a 9 week program. Weeks 1-4 involve Mondays that are 5x5, Wednesdays that are a light day, and Fridays that are 1x5. The weight increases week to week: (1) week 1 is 80% of the respective rep scheme of Monday and Friday; (2) week 2 is 90%; (3) week 3 is 100%; and (4) week 4 is a 105%. Week 5 is a deload by repeating the weight in week 4 with the rep schemes of 3x3 instead of 5x5 and 1x3 instead of 1x5. Week 6-9 are the same as weeks 1-4. Weight increases weekly but the rep schemes are 3x3 on Mondays and 1x3 on Fridays with no squats on Wednesdays. There is more to this program but this is the basic idea of periodization at this level. The disruption in homeostasis is built up over several weeks with a planned deload to allow the trainee to recover. Progress is now seen after a monthly cycle.

Elite: Genetic monsters. Very few individuals make it this far, and make no mistake, they make social and physical sacrifices to make it here. These individuals periodize their workouts just like the advanced lifters but the line between training over training is exceptionally fine. Greater program complexity with increased variables are required to squeeze out the last bit of their genetic potential.

Examples - These individuals are at the top of their sport and fine tune their programs for their individual goals with competitions in mind. In addition, many of these lifters have coaches who oversee their programs so you won't find boilerplate programs at this level of training (coaches benefit all level of trainees). At this level, a trainee knows their body well and has enough knowledge at this point to develop your own program (i.e., do they respond better to volume or intensity, how long is recovery from fatigue, etc.). An example, my buddy is an competitive Oly lifter and back squats 495 at a bw of 185 A2G raw, he designs his own program and has a coach.

TL;DR: There are 2 things to keep in mind when designing a program: your experience and your goals. There are many variables that go into designing a program such as exercises, frequency, rest, rep and set schemes. Nutrition and sleep are integral. Don't overtrain, and design a program with your level of experience and ability in mind to maximize gains.

(If there is enough demand, I can go into greater depth for the Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced lifting programs that I briefly discussed).