A Complete Workout Plan

A complete workout plan will include:

• Initial and regular physical assessments to set goals and monitor progress;
• Corrective and restorative exercises to improve stability and mobility of your myoskeletal structures (muscles, bones, joints and connective tissue), while preventing injuries;
• Strength building exercises to improve metabolical functions of muscle cells, bone, and joint health;
• Aerobic exercises and activities to maintain cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

A Complete Workout Plan vs. A Total Body Workout

A lot of people may confuse the term "a complete workout plan" with "a total body workout." One must clearly understand the difference between these two terms for they describe quite different approaches to exercising.

As we mentioned earlier, a complete workout plan is a system of workouts that comprises various types of physical exercise and therapeutic activities. A complete workout plan is a set of workout sessions that can span over many days or even weeks before the sequence of these workouts repeats or gets adjusted.

A total body workout, on the other hand, is usually a single-session workout that targets all muscle groups and can include various types of exercises. But the main focus is to cover everything in one session, give your body a "total" workout at once.

Although many people prefer to jam all their exercise needs into one-session, as in the total body workout approach, I lean toward a more functional and systematic approach by separating various types of activities by days or, perhaps, per multiple sessions within one day. This allows me to fine-tune the efforts of reaching particular fitness goals, rather than go for a general do-it-all approach.