Three lifts, twice a week, for the next ten years

The best training programme isn't the optimal one. It's the one you're still doing in ten years.

I coach tradesmen, fathers and desk workers. The programmes that survive have three things in common: they're short, they're boring, and they don't collapse when someone misses a week.

The structure

Two sessions a week. Forty-five minutes each. Every session is a push, a pull, and a leg movement.

Session A

• Squat or goblet squat — 3 sets of 5
• Bench press or push-up — 3 sets of 5–8
• Row — 3 sets of 8

Session B

• Deadlift or Romanian deadlift — 2 sets of 5
• Overhead press — 3 sets of 5
• Chin-up or lat pulldown — 3 sets of as many as you can manage

Alternate them. A, B, A, then next week B, A, B.

That's the whole programme. If it looks too simple, that's the point — the simplicity is what lets it survive a bad month.

Add weight slowly, and stop early

Add the smallest increment available when all your sets felt solid. On the lower body that's usually 2.5kg; upper body, 1.25kg a side if your gym has small plates.

Leave one or two reps in reserve on every set. Not to failure. Training to failure feels productive, wrecks your recovery, and is the reason most people's fourth week is worse than their third.

You should finish every session feeling like you could have done a bit more. Do that for two years and you'll be extremely strong. Chase the maximum every session and you'll be injured by March.

The warm-up

Five minutes. Not stretching — movement.

Bike or brisk walk for three minutes, then the first movement of the session with an empty bar or bodyweight for two sets. That's enough. Long warm-ups are one of the main reasons a forty-five-minute session becomes a ninety-minute one and then stops happening.

Missing weeks

You'll miss weeks. A child gets ill, work goes sideways, you get flu.

Come back at about 90% of where you left off and rebuild over two sessions. Don't try to make up ground, and don't start over from the beginning. Missing two weeks costs you almost nothing. Quitting because you missed two weeks costs you everything.

Sleep is part of the programme

Not a lifestyle tip bolted on the end. If you're sleeping five hours, your strength won't go up regardless of how well you train, and your injury risk goes up substantially.

Seven hours minimum. This is the least popular sentence I write and the most consistently true one.

What to eat, kept short

Protein at every meal. Roughly 1.6g per kilogram of bodyweight per day is the number the research keeps landing on for people who lift.

Everything else is adjustment. If you want to be leaner, eat less overall. If you want to be bigger, eat more. The protein is the part that determines whether the training turns into muscle or just into fatigue.

General fitness information, not medical advice. If you've an existing injury or condition, speak to a physiotherapist or doctor before starting a new programme.