Free Workout Plan Generator: Build a Weekly Routine

How to read the plan you just got

The workout plan generator returns four things: a training split, a list of exercises for each training day, sets and a target rep range for each exercise, and a table of how many sets each muscle group gets across the week.

Read the weekly sets table first. It is the part that tells you whether the plan does what you want, and it is the part most plan generators do not show you. To check those numbers against your goal, run them through the training volume calculator or read hypertrophy vs. strength for how volume needs differ between the two.

The plan is a starting week, not a program. It has no idea what you lifted last month, it cannot see your technique, and it does not progress itself. What to do about that is covered under what this generator does not do.

The rules this workout plan generator uses

No part of this is a black box. Here is every rule, in the order the generator applies them.

Stage 0: which exercises are available to you

The generator starts from GymEvo's own exercise library: 269 records covering 197 distinct movements. It then removes some movements, filters by equipment and filters by experience level.

Excluded movements

It drops 27 movements that do not belong in a generated plan. Olympic lifts (clean, snatch, jerk and their variants) are technique-led and should be coached, not prescribed by a form.

Conditioning and plyometric work (burpees, battle ropes, kettlebell swings, box jumps) is not sets-and-reps resistance training. Calisthenics skills (planche push-ups, one-arm pull-ups, muscle-ups, dragon flags) are skills you work towards rather than slots you fill.

Two rotator-cuff exercises are dropped because the underlying data records no primary muscle for them, and the generator will not guess.

Equipment preference

It keeps only what your available equipment can load, then keeps one version of each movement. The library stores the same movement once per equipment type, so Bench Press exists four times and Biceps Curl five. Without that step a plan could hand you barbell bench press and Smith machine bench press in the same week.

Which version survives depends on the movement's role:

Compound exercises default to free weights, so with a full gym most of them come out as barbell lifts. That is where loading and progression are easiest to manage. Isolation exercises default to machines and cables because the resistance profile is usually better and the setup is quicker. Both are defaults, not verdicts: a dumbbell lateral raise is not a worse exercise than a machine one.

Ticking bodyweight only builds the plan from bodyweight exercises, which makes it usable for home workouts. The second worked example shows what that leaves out.

Experience filter

Your experience level filters the same pool. Beginner returns only movements tagged beginner, intermediate adds the intermediate ones, advanced adds everything that survived the exclusions.

Stage 1: which training split you get

Training frequency decides the split, with no other input involved.

None of these is a bro split with one muscle group per day. Every option trains the upper and lower body on at least two days a week, in line with how often you should train a muscle.

Each day is a list of movement slots, never a list of exercises. An upper day asks for a horizontal push, a vertical pull, a vertical push, biceps and triceps. Which exercise fills each slot is decided in the next stage.

Stage 2: which exercise fills each slot

Each slot takes the highest-ranked available exercise for that movement pattern that the plan has not already used that week.

Ranking within each of the movement patterns is a fixed, hand-written order: squat before front squat before leg press before lunges, bench press before incline before dips.

That ordering is an editorial judgement about which movement makes the most useful default, not a claim that the first entry is best for everyone. It exists because the alternative, sorting alphabetically, puts Forward Lunge ahead of Squat.

If your equipment has nothing for a slot, the plan leaves the slot empty and tells you which movement is missing. It does not quietly substitute a different exercise to make the day look full.

Stage 3: sets and reps

Sets and rep ranges come from your goal crossed with whether the exercise is a compound or an isolation movement.

Beginners get one fewer set of isolation work, to a minimum of two. Compound sets are not reduced: that is where a new lifter gets the practice reps.

There is no fat loss goal, because fat loss comes mostly from diet. The hypertrophy or general fitness setting works during a cut; building muscle while losing fat and the daily calorie needs calculator cover the eating side.

Stage 4: fitting the time you have

Session length is estimated as ten minutes of warm-up, plus 45 seconds per working set, plus rest periods between every set: three minutes after a compound set, 90 seconds after an isolation set. How long to rest between sets explains why rest periods that long pay off.

If a session runs over the time you asked for, the generator removes exercises from the end of the day until it fits, but never goes below three. If three still do not fit, it says so instead of shortening the rest periods. At 30 minutes that happens often, and fewer training days with longer sessions is the better fix.

Stage 5: counting the volume

Weekly sets are counted per muscle group. Direct means the muscle is a primary target of the exercise; indirect means it assists. Indirect sets are counted as half, the same convention the training volume calculator uses, and for the same reason: counting them fully overstates the work and ignoring them understates it.

One detail matters here. The library splits the chest into upper, middle and lower, so a bench press records three chest muscles. Counting each separately would turn one set of bench into three sets of chest. Regions are collapsed before counting, so an exercise contributes its sets to the chest once.

Check the plan before you run it

The generator applies rules. It does not have judgement. Three checks take a minute and will catch most of what it gets wrong for you.

Check the weekly sets against what you are aiming for. How many sets per week sets out where the evidence points and why the number is less important than how you got there. If a muscle you care about is sitting at four counted sets, the plan is not built for that goal.

Check the session length. The estimate assumes you rest properly. If you habitually train faster than that, your real sessions will be shorter; if you talk between sets, longer.

Check the exercises against your gym. The generator knows equipment categories, not your gym. It will offer a hack squat if you told it you have machines, whether or not yours has one.

If a plan fails one of these, change an input and generate again. Fewer days with more time per session, or a different goal, usually moves it more than swapping single exercises.

Worked examples

Both examples below are stored as the tool's verified examples, and the test suite checks that the generator still produces them exactly.

Three days a week, beginner, general fitness, 60 minutes, commercial gym

Split: full body, three times a week. Each session comes to about 53 minutes.

Weekly counted sets come out at 9 for glutes and lats, 7.5 for upper back, 6 for chest and quads, 6.5 for hamstrings, biceps and triceps, and 2 for calves and core. Rear delts get no direct work at all, which the plan reports.

Read that table rather than the exercise list. Chest at 6 direct sets is on the low side if hypertrophy is the goal, and it is the honest consequence of three full-body days: everything gets a share, nothing gets a lot.

Four days a week, intermediate, hypertrophy, 45 minutes, bodyweight only

This is the case that shows the limits, so it is worth publishing rather than hiding.

The split is an Upper/Lower Split, but every day comes back at 47 to 55 minutes against a 45-minute target, and three slots cannot be filled at all: biceps, chest isolation and side delts. Bodyweight training has no loadable exercise for any of them.

The plan reports four major muscles with no direct work: side delts, rear delts, calves and core. That is not a bug in the generator, it is what the equipment allows. A pull-up bar and one pair of dumbbells changes most of it. Progressive overload with bodyweight and calisthenics covers how to keep progressing inside those constraints.

How this differs from an AI workout plan generator

This workout plan generator is rule-based, not AI. The same inputs always return the same plan, and every rule it applies is printed above, so you can see why an exercise was picked or left out.

An AI generator can take more input, such as free-text preferences, and its plan can feel more personalized. The trade is that you usually cannot see why it chose what it did, and asking twice can give you two different plans.

Neither kind is a coach. Both work from what you tell them, not from watching you train. If you want an app that builds or adapts training for you, the Fitbod alternatives comparison sets out which apps do what.

What this generator does not do

It does not know anything about you beyond the five inputs on this page. Not your injuries, your history, your technique, your schedule, or how the last block went.

It does not screen you for injury or illness, and it is not medical, physiotherapy or dietetic advice. If you have pain, a current or recent injury, a medical condition, or you are pregnant or recently postpartum, talk to a qualified professional about what training suits you before starting any plan from this page, including this one.

It does not progress. Every plan it produces is week one, and adding weight, reps or sets over time is what drives results. See progressive overload: the complete guide, or linear progression if you are new to lifting.

It does not plan deload weeks or recovery. Deload weeks covers when to back off and how.

It does not pick your weights or effort. The one-rep max calculator turns a set you have done into an estimated 1RM and training weights. The RPE scale sets how hard each set should feel.

It prescribes straight sets only. No supersets or drop sets.

It is not the only reasonable plan. Fixed rules produce one defensible answer, not the best one. A plan you will actually follow beats a better plan you will not.

Frequently asked questions

Is this workout plan generator free?

Yes. It runs in your browser, with no account and no sign-up, and every rule behind the plan is published on this page.

Which split should I pick?

You pick training frequency, not a split. Choose the number of workouts per week you can keep up in a normal week, and the generator matches it to Full Body, an Upper/Lower Split or Push/Pull/Legs using the table in Stage 1.

Does it work for home workouts?

Yes, if you select only the equipment you have at home. Bodyweight on its own leaves some muscle groups, such as the side delts and calves, without direct work, and the plan tells you which. A pull-up bar or a pair of dumbbells fills most of those gaps.

Where the plan goes next

A generated week is worth exactly as much as the weeks that follow it, and a page cannot store those.

GymEvo keeps the split, arranges the workouts across the days of the week, and works out the next weight and rep target for each exercise from the sets you logged, so the plan changes as your training does. GymEvo Premium also uses AI to generate a personalized split from your experience level, equipment, preferred muscle groups and goals, which is the version of this tool that knows your history.

See how GymEvo's workout planner builds and holds a plan, or read how to create a workout plan if you would rather build one yourself and understand each decision as you make it.