How to Build a Fitness Routine

Do you get tired of your workout routine easily, or just want to change things up? Me too!

But here we do things differently.

Hey, I’m Jessie. And for years I had to have the right equipment, routine, lighting, sleep, food, routine, clothes and music just to feel like I could accomplish my workout. And they would be 2 hours long at my worst.

I fell into the hustle and grind of the fitness industry, and it took me years to get out and find a more balanced approach to it.

And that’s what I’m sharing here in this blog post today. I’m currently changing my own workout routine, because I guess I’m bored of my workouts after 4 weeks. And I wanted to share how I simply adjust and move forward after!

I also did a sit down talk about this on my YouTube channel, and you can get my Movement Experiment journal I’m using on Amazon.

Otherwise, let’s jump into this!

How to build a fitness routine you’ll actually enjoy and do consistently:

• Goal for the next 4 weeks or for this workout plan

• Exercises you want to do

• Energy levels and current schedule

• Plan out next 4 weeks

• Test out and be open

Goal for the next 4 weeks or for this workout plan

Don’t think of what you want life to look like overall, then it’s too complicated. You can have an overall goal you’re working toward, whether that’s entering a fitness competition, running a 5k or getting your first pull up.

For now, look at what you’d like to accomplish in the next 4 weeks. What sounds like something fun to do?

For me, I wanted to focus on using the new boxing bag I got, while still getting to the gym and lifting weights.

So I’m focusing on that for now. And it can be as simple as that! Because the next step breaks it down even more.

Exercises you want to do

Make a list. Say them all!

The easiest way I do this based on the goal from above, I start scrolling through all the exercise ideas I saved on Pinterest and Instagram (be sure to follow me on both as I’m sharing this and more over there!). Then make a list.

It doesn’t have to make sense right away, you’re just getting a feel for what you’d like to focus on. After that, you can start trying to piece them all together to make it make a little more sense.

So, for example, if your goal is more full body workouts, divvy out the exercises you have listed so each workout encompasses an exercise for each body part.

Or, what I’m doing, is with my boxing days in the garage, I want to work on my pull ups and core strength since we have a pull up bar there. So I’m listing the core exercises that will also work best for the garage. And then for my gym workout days, I’m listing the exercises I want to do for upper body focused and lower body focused days.

This step is to just continue piecing it together, you’re not done yet.

Energy levels and current schedule

You HAVE to be honest with yourself here. You can create and come up with an awesome workout routine, but if your schedule and energy level doesn’t allow for it to happen, then it’s all a waste of your time.

So what does your work schedule look like. Would you be able to workout in the morning, or is the afternoon the best time for you? Does your week vary, so will you have different times to get your workout in depending on your rotation? Will you be Monday through Friday, or will it alternate every other day, will it include the weekend, will it be 6 days, 5 days, 3 days?

For me, I have to workout in the afternoon right now because my part time job is early mornings, and I tend to have less energy those days. So I’m planning to have my boxing days then, and then a more “chill” upper body day on the third.

When I first starting writing my workouts with a new schedule, I could barely keep up. I set myself up for failure because I assumed I would be able to keep my normal routine and intensity.

But no.

Life happens. Schedules change. Energy changes and you’ll have periods or decades where your workouts are going to look a lot or a little different then they have.

And that’s not a bad thing! The goal is to keep fitness and be active in your life. So the more flexible you can be with it, the more likely you are to keep it. 

Check out my blog How To Balance Fitness, Work and a Side Hustle where I break down how I make it work.

Plan out next 4 weeks

Now that you have a goal, a list of exercises for that goal and a realistic idea of your energy level and schedule during the week, it’s time to write out the plan!

Again, the goal is to be realistic with your schedule, but also wanting to push yourself a little.

If you’re just getting back to fitness, then maybe trying 3 days a week, with an upper, lower and full body focused day is what you need. Then you break down the list of exercises you want to do and place them in each day. This can be 3-10 exercises. Seriously, it’s up to you! But I usually recommend at least 3 exercises for each body part. So 3 back exercises, 3 chest, 3 leg, etc.

If you have trouble with how to place it during the week, check out different plans on Pinterest or Instagram. How are other people breaking it down? What seems fun or interesting about it? Can it work for you?

And there’s no right or wrong way of doing this. If anything, I’d recommend breaking it up so you aren’t doing the same exercises back to back so your body has a break.

For me, I’m planning a boxing, pull up and core workout to be Monday and Wednesday, lower body gym day on Tuesday, upper body gym day on Thursday and a “wildcard” day on Friday. Why? Because I know in the past, I haven’t been able to commit to 5 days in the gym with my work schedule ranging from 8-12 hours depending on the day and when I get there. And I can use it at any point during the week too!
For instance, I’m writing this on a Tuesday, and I didn’t go to the gym yesterday. So I’ll just plan on doing my Monday workout on Friday. And it’s as simple as that.

If building a workout routine still doesn’t make sense for you, or you want more ideas to add in, check out my Workout Ideas programs with different focuses to help out.

Test out and be open

No matter how you approach this, what program you write or what it looks like, it’s all just a starting point. Even if you purchase a program from someone, it’s not the final end all be all say. It’s always a starting point. It’s taking information in, what you like and don’t like, how your body is reacting, what you’re noticing or able to do.

And it can adjust too.

Don’t expect it to be perfect or go according to plan right away. Like I said, when I wrote my first workout routine after getting my part time job, it was a disaster! I could barely get through my workouts because my sleep and food schedule was off, my body ached and normal exercises were a strain. I missed a lot of workouts because I just couldn’t handle even leaving the house after getting back from work and felt like a total failure! 

But once I decided to take a step back and really work on changing the way I viewed how it all worked together, it started to work out.

If you want to see how I started all of that and fueled myself for those workouts, check out my Food Experiment on YouTube!

The whole point of this blog, because I’m sure it’s annoyingly simple when you want more structure, is that there’s no right way of doing this.

If you’ve been exercising or have exercised in the past, understand how to do it safely and properly, and know not to just train arms every single day, then you can create a workout routine of exercises you like or want to try, test out how you feel, and adjust from there.

A lot of us, myself included, have overcomplicated a lot when it comes to health and fitness. But the simpler it is, the better. And even more, the more likely you are to do the workout and keep coming back, the better! Even if it’s walking every day.

Moving your body is the goal. To what extent is up to you based on your goals.

So try it out, have some fun, and if you want more ideas, check out my blog The Best Workout for You and my shop with a couple $5 plans to get you started.