From Warm-Up to Finish: How to Structure the Perfect Gym Session

Clem Duranseaud
6 days ago
6 min read

Man in a red shirt deadlifting in a gym with blue weights. Text overlay reads "How to Organize Your Workouts." Dynamic and focused mood.

You made it to the gym, you have your workout plan, and you are ready to go.

But then you step onto the gym floor, a chaotic jungle of barbells, benches, and people moving in every direction, and you wonder: Where the F do I start?

What kind of warm-up should you do? If your station is taken, do you wait or move on to another exercise?

In this article we will go over exactly what to do from the warm-up to cool-down, so that every minute of your workout counts and you leave the gym confident, not confused.

Table of Contents

Before your workout
The two warm ups
Types of sets
Exercise selection
Exercise order
How long should you rest
Cool down

What to do before your workout

There are two main things you want to do before you even go to the gym.

Pack your gym clothes. The number of times I hear "I forgot my stuff" is much higher than you'd think. Pack it the day before, or have a spare one at work or in your car.
Eat properly. As long as you're not starving or about to hurl during your workout it doesn't really matter how long before you eat. Choose whole, unprocessed and easily digestible foods such as fruits, veggies and grains. If you have meat or healthy fats, try to have that at least 90 min before the session as they take longer to digest.

The most important thing about your pre workout routine is to make you ready to go when you hit the gym.

What warm up should you do?

Athlete in blue uniform stretches on a red track, touching his foot. White lines mark the lanes. Focused expression.

There are two types of warm ups:

The general warm up. Its goal is to elevate your body temperature, to get you focused on the task ahead and often to transition from work more to training mode. This could be any cardio machine for 5 minutes, your favourite short mobility routine or a general warm up flow.
The specific warm up is the one you do before an exercise. For example, before squatting, you may do a hip mobility flow followed by your warm up sets. Before an upper body workout you might do an upper body mobility routine before your warm up sets.
Don't overthink the specific warm up too much. If you don't have movement limitations, doing a couple warm up sets is a straightforward approach.

The two warm ups shouldn't take you much longer than 10 minutes in total. Doing these will help you feel better during your sets, reduce injury risk and help your stay more consistent on the long term. Pro tip: if your short on time, skip the general warm up and do a slightly longer specific warm up.

Types of sets when organizing your workout

There are two main types of sets, each of them with a specific goal.

Warm up sets

As seen previously, these help you get ready for your working sets. The goal is the have great technique and to transfer it to your working sets.

Example: I am about to squat with 100kg for 3 sets of 8 reps.

Warm up set 1: 8 reps at 60kg

Warm up set 2: 4 reps at 80kg

The set at 60kg is light enough that 8 reps won't fatigue me for my working sets. This is were I go through my technique mental check list: engage core, dial in breathing, hips go low, feel my arches push into the ground...

The set at 80kg only has four reps because doing more would probably fatigue me a little for my working sets. The weight is still light enough that I can still focus on technique.

Knowing how many warm up sets to do is more an art than a science. If you feel like you need three, do three. If you feel good to go after one, do one.

I recommend doing at least one warm up set per exercise.

Once you're done your warm ups, it's time to get down to business with the working sets.

Working sets

These are the actual sets of the workout. When you look at any training program and see 3 x 10 of a certain exercise, those are three workout sets.

So after my two warm up sets above, I would then go on to do my three working sets. These are much more intense than the warm ups, and on top of technique, I focus on generating as much force as possible.

Exercise selection

The exercise you choose for a certain workout will depend on your workout split. We won't go into details about all of them, so let's assume you are hitting the gym three times per week, on a full body split.

You would want at least 9-12 hard working sets per muscle group per week, that's about 3-4 sets per muscle group each workout.

In this situation, we would need 3 sets for legs, chest, back, shoulders, arms and abs.

For the big muscles like legs, chest and back, try sticking to compound exercises (work two or more joints). For the smaller muscles, you can stick to isolation exercises (1 joint worked).

The workout could look like this:

Dumbbells lunges, 3 x 8
Incline chest presses, 3 x 10
Lat pull down, 3 x 8
Lat raises, 3 x 15
Bicep curls, 3 x 12
Cable Pallof press, 3 x8

Comparison chart: Compound vs Isolation exercises. Compound targets multiple joints, isolation targets one. Black icons show exercises.

Which exercises to do first?

The order of the exercises matter. You'll have more energy for the ones you do first. For this reason, do the harder ones first. As a rule of thumb, do all your compound lifts before your isolation stuff.

In the example above, if you couldn't do the lunges first, it's ok to do either to incline press or lat pull down. As long as you do those three before the last three.

If I showed up to do this workout, and the first three station were taken, I would either ask to work in and share a station with someone or wait for one to free up. I'd rather have more energy for the compound lifts than for the isolation ones.

Two people on leg press machines at a gym. One wears a blue tank top, the other a red jacket. "Gold's Gym Venice CA" sign in the background. — Hack squat at Gold's in LA

How long should you rest during your workout?

During the warm up sets keep your rest short, one minute is plenty. The rule is to stay as fresh as possible for your working sets, but since you are using lighter weights, you don't have to take too long.

For you working sets, you can, in theory, take as long as you want between your sets. The longer you rest, the more you are recovered, and the more work you can do each set.

Now this doesn't mean you should scroll endlessly on your phone between your sets. In fact I don't recommend doing that, because it's distracting. The only thing you should do between your sets is to get mentally ready for the next one.

Generally speaking, 2 minutes is long enough if you're goal is muscle building, and 3 minutes is good for strength workouts.

Should you stretch at the end of your workout?

The cool down of your workout is going to be very subjective. Stretching after a workout won't help you recover faster, but if it feels good for you, then go right ahead.

The goal of a cool down is to help you lower your heart rate and transition from workout mode to normal life mode.

My personal go to cool down is 15 minutes of steam room. It's been shown that this does absolutely nothing to boost recovery, but it make me feel amazing. I love being in there alone with my thoughts before heading back out into the world.

The best cool-down is the one that helps you leave the gym feeling good physically and mentally.

How to structure your workout quick recap

Make sure you have your gym stuff and ate the right meals before you head to the gym
Start with a 5 minutes general warm up
Do a 5 min specific warm up before your first exercise
Do your compound lifts
Do your isolation lifts
Don't waste your time in between sets
Cool down if you have time