Hey! In this blog post, we will show you which mistakes frequently occur in training plans for muscle building and strength training based on our experience. You are welcome to use this to check your own training plan or simply use our service for this at https://fitnessgpt.net/Trainingsplan-ueberpruefen/.
In short: These are the weaknesses in training plans for muscle or strength building that we frequently see:
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Excessive volume
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Many redundant exercises
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Too many exercises for the actual training time
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Suboptimal order of exercises
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Lack of a proper progression strategy
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Too much mixing of cardio and strength training
Background: We at klimmzugstangen.de have been dealing with the topic of fitness and training for more than 20 years. A few months ago, we launched the FitnessGPT service. With this, we have now been able to gain a series of interesting insights into typical training plans, which we have used as the basis for the content of this blog post.
If you're interested, here is what our data foundation looks like. And further below are our insights regarding the weaknesses in detail, complemented by corresponding suggestions for improvement.
Excessive Volume: Junk Volume / Empty Miles
In many plans, we see an extremely high volume for individual muscle groups. For example, bench press, incline bench press, butterfly, cable crossovers, and dumbbell flys are frequently performed in a single session on "Push Day".
If you add that up, it quickly amounts to a total of 15–20 sets just for the chest! This is anything but optimal.
Reason: Beyond a volume of approx. 6-9 sets per muscle and session, more training does not provide any additional muscle growth stimulus. It only prolongs the recovery time. The central nervous system fatigues, leading to "overtraining", which reflects itself, for example, in a lower motivation to train.
The possible improvement is very simple:
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Reduce training volume and simultaneously increase intensity:
Sports science suggests 2 to a maximum of 3 exercises per large muscle group. This could be, for example, 1 x heavy compound exercise and 1-2 x specific isolation exercises. This would make a weekly volume of about 6-15 sets per muscle group quite suitable. -
Ensure execution quality:
You should really only perform e.g. 3 "hard" or "exhausting" sets briskly and cleanly, getting close to muscle failure. They always yield significantly better results than 6 half-hearted sets, executed somehow, without really getting close to muscle failure.
Stringing Together "Essentially the Same Exercises"
Another frequently observed phenomenon is the stringing together of exercises that essentially serve the same purpose. Here is the typical sequence we see: Lat pulldowns to the chest are followed by lat pulldowns behind the neck, crowned by a round on the assisted pull-up machine. Or the triceps are first isolated with the rope and immediately afterwards with the V-bar.
Such an incorrect sequencing hinders progression. Put simply: In such a case, the musculature is stimulated from almost identical angles using the exact same movement pattern. While this generates a "pump", it does not provide a new, meaningful growth stimulus. Instead, valuable training time and energy are merely wasted.
Solution: Simply choose different load angles specifically. If, for example, during back training a "vertical pull" (e.g., on a pull-up bar) is combined with a subsequent "horizontal pull" (like bent-over barbell rows), the latissimus, the rhomboids, and the trapezius muscles are already almost completely covered. Additional vertical pulls in the same session are simply unnecessary baggage. As a result, training time is used much more effectively.
Training Constantly to Muscle Failure (Training to Failure)
A good portion of users state that they train to absolute muscle failure in every or almost every set. This is also suboptimal.
Improvement: Constant muscle failure burns out the CNS and massively prolongs recovery time without providing any significant added value for hypertrophy. The recommendation is: At the end of a set of compound exercises, 1-2 clean repetitions should still be possible ("leave it in the tank"). Only with safe isolation exercises (e.g., bicep curls) should you push to failure in the final set.
Stagnation through Habit: The "3x12 Trap"
What else catches our eye: In almost 90% of the analyzed plans, there is a lack of a clear concept for progressive overload and a clear differentiation of the number of repetitions over time and/or by exercise.
And here lies the real problem: The human body constantly adapts to stress. If you perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions with the identical weight for weeks on end, you simply give the organism no reason to build new muscle mass.
Solution through variation and dynamic adjustment of the load:
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Approach of specific adaptation for each exercise:
Complex exercises like pull-ups, squats, or bench presses should be trained heavy – with about 3-4 sets of 5-8 reps to maximize mechanical tension. For supplementary exercises like rows or the leg press, 3 sets of 8-12 reps should be chosen. For isolation exercises like curls or lateral raises, the muscle can handle 2-3 sets of 12-15+ reps to create maximum metabolic stress. -
Approach of double progression:
Here too, training theory states that over time, only the number of repetitions should be increased first (e.g., working your way up from 8 to 12). Once the 12 clean reps are cracked in the last set, the weight should be moderately increased the next time, and the cycle starts again at 8 reps.
Goal Conflict in the Body: The Interference Effect
In combined training plans aimed at both muscle or strength building and weight loss simultaneously, we observe the following pattern: Directly after strength training, another 20 to 30 minutes are spent on the treadmill or stairmaster. The approach and motivation are understandable, but this reduces the effectiveness of the training.
Reason: Intensive resistance training activates specific signaling pathways in the body for muscle building. If an overly intense endurance workout follows immediately afterwards, exactly this signaling pathway is disrupted by a signal for energy depletion.
As a result, the previously painstakingly set stimulus for muscle building is partially or entirely inhibited. In any case, intensive cardio training directly after the strength session is highly counterproductive.
Our recommendation regarding this is: The training stimuli of strength and endurance training should always be well separated. A relaxed, five to ten-minute cool-down walk is perfectly fine. True, intensive cardio training, however, should absolutely be uncoupled in terms of time.
If you have the time, do your cardio in the morning and your strength training in the evening – or ideally, move the endurance session entirely to a different day than the strength training.
Discrepancy Between Goal (Nutrition) and Training
What we repeatedly notice: Users who want to lose weight often do not have a nutrition plan at all. At the same time, they hope to achieve the deficit purely through a short workout.
Common phenomenon: Users who want to build muscle eat significantly too few calories (even though they clearly need 2,400 kcal maintenance calories, for example) or want to define simultaneously ("lean bulk" at 66 kg on 184 cm).
Good to know: Training only sets the stimulus, nutrition provides the building materials. For muscle building, a slight calorie surplus (approx. +300 kcal) must be established, especially for young men still growing. For weight loss, a moderate deficit (approx. -300 to -500 kcal) is absolutely necessary. A protein goal of 1.6 g - 2.0 g per kg of body weight should always be targeted.
Unbalanced Splits and Neglect of Muscle Groups
For many male teenagers, the legs are often completely missing from the training plan (Approach: "Skipping Leg Day"). For female trainees, the plan often consists of 80-100% pure glute and leg training, while the upper body is neglected. Others have highly chaotic splits leading to an incorrect load frequency (one muscle is trained 3x, the other only 1x).
Here's how to do it better: We are left with no choice but to recommend using classic, evidence-based splits. For 2-3 days: Full Body. For 4 days: Upper Body/Lower Body (UB/LB). For 5-6 days: Push/Pull/Legs (PPL). This guarantees that every muscle is stimulated 2x per week (optimal frequency for hypertrophy) and muscle imbalances are avoided.
Wrong Exercise Order: Bodyweight Exercises at the End
We see this really often: Complex, heavy exercises like the classic pull-up are often pushed to the end of the session as a "little extra" or run under the label "I do them occasionally". For pull-ups, this mostly happens when lat pulldowns and rowing machines have already burned out the musculature.
The problem with this is that pull-ups are not casual "finisher" exercises. Pull-ups are heavy, highly complex compound movements that demand the highest concentration, immense core tension, and absolute neurological freshness. If you try to progress in this exercise in a pre-fatigued state, you will find yourself frustrated and stuck in one place. That is quite simply a fact.
Sorting priorities correctly as a solution approach:
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The heaviest first:
Always place coordination-demanding bodyweight exercises at the beginning of the session. As we always say: Anyone who wants to get better at the bar must train the exercise with fully charged batteries. -
Add external weights:
If you can easily perform 10 to 12 clean pull-ups in the first set, you should consider a dipping belt and additional weight (weighted pull-ups) to force the muscles to further adapt!
Conclusion: Fewer Mistakes, More Progress
In conclusion, we can say: If you have a standard plan that you have tweaked here and there over time with rather little experience, then your training plan can often be greatly improved. As a first step, it is often appropriate to radically declutter the grown training plan.
Furthermore, you should always ensure the temporal separation of intensive endurance training and strength training so as not to disrupt the triggered stimuli for muscle growth. Additionally, the correct sequence of exercises – complex and heavy movements first – determines the quality of the entire training session.
If you are unsure whether your current plan meets these criteria, a neutral look from the outside is worthwhile to release potential brakes on muscle building early on. As written at the beginning, simply check your training plan against the points mentioned or use FitnessGPT for this purpose.
