Your training week at seventy, written out in full

Three sessions a week. About fifty minutes each, including the warm-up. Two of them are heavy and slow, one is fast and short. You need a pair of adjustable dumbbells that go to at least 20kg, somewhere to sit and press, and a sturdy box or bench about knee height. A trap bar helps enormously if your gym has one. Nothing else is required.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday works. So does Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. What doesn't work is two sessions back to back and then five days off, because recovery is the thing that's changed most since you were forty and it's the thing your schedule has to respect.

Session A: squat, press, carry

Goblet squat or box squat — 3 sets of 6 to 8. Hold a dumbbell at your chest, sit back to a bench, touch it, stand. The bench isn't a concession. It fixes your depth so you're not guessing, and it means a failed rep just means you sit down.

Step-up to a knee-height box — 2 sets of 6 per leg. Slow up, slower down. The lowering half is where balance lives.

Seated dumbbell overhead press — 3 sets of 6 to 8. Seated, with a back support, until you've been training six months. Then stand if your shoulders are happy.

Farmer's carry — 4 trips of about 30 meters. Heaviest dumbbells you can hold with a straight spine and a normal walking pace.

Suitcase hold — 3 holds of 20 seconds per side. One dumbbell only. Stand tall, don't lean. This is where your obliques and your hips learn to stop you tipping.

Rest two to three minutes between the hard sets. Not ninety seconds. You're training the muscle, not the lungs, and rushing is how a set turns sloppy on rep six.

Session B: hinge, pull, and the backs of your legs

Trap-bar deadlift from blocks or a rack — 3 sets of 5. Raise the bar so it starts at mid-shin or higher. There's no prize for pulling from the floor, and the raised start keeps your lower back out of trouble. If there's no trap bar, two heavy dumbbells at your sides will do.

Single-leg Romanian deadlift, one hand on a rail — 2 sets of 8 per side. Light. This is a balance drill with a strength benefit, not the reverse.

Chest-supported row — 3 sets of 8 to 10. Lying face-down on an incline bench removes your lower back from the equation entirely, which means you can go heavy on it forever.

Lat pulldown — 3 sets of 10.

Calf raises — 2 sets of 15, off a step, with a pause at the bottom. Calves and ankles are the first thing to go stiff and the last thing anyone trains.

Session C: the fast day

This is the one most men your age skip, and it's the one that keeps you upright. Strength and power aren't the same quality, and power goes first. Power is what catches you when your heel clips a kerb.

Fast step-ups onto a low box — 5 sets of 3 per leg. Explosive up, controlled down, long rest.

Medicine ball throw into a wall, or a hard push-away from a bench — 5 sets of 3. Intent matters more than load here. Move it fast.

Split squat, rear foot on the floor — 2 sets of 8 per leg.

Push-ups with hands on a bench — 3 sets of 8.

Single-leg stand — 3 rounds of 30 seconds each side, near a kitchen counter. When that's easy, close your eyes. That progression is harder than it sounds and you'll be glad you own the counter.

Thirty-five minutes, done. You should leave feeling springy, not wrecked.

How to add weight without wrecking yourself

Reps first, then load. If the program says 6 to 8, you add reps until you hit 8 on every set, then you add weight and drop back to 6.

Increments: 2.5kg on the trap bar and squats, 1kg on pressing. That's roughly a monthly jump on the lower body lifts and slower upstairs. It feels absurdly cautious in week three. In month fourteen it's the reason you're still training.

Never grind. Every set should end with two or three reps still available. You should not miss a lift this year, or next year. A missed rep at seventy costs you three weeks of a sore shoulder, and three weeks at three sessions a week is nine sessions you won't get back.

Every fourth week, cut every set to half the reps and keep the weight. That's your deload. Take it even when you feel fine. Especially then.

The part nobody puts in the program

Tendons run on a slower clock than muscle. Your quads will be ready to add weight a month before the tendon attaching them is, and the gap between those two timelines is where most injuries at your age come from. The muscle says yes. The elbow says no, two weeks later, at 4am.

So when something starts talking to you — a biceps tendon, the front of a shoulder, the outside of a hip — you don't stop training. You cut the load on that movement by about a third, keep the reps, and give it a fortnight. Nine times out of ten it settles. If it doesn't settle, or it wakes you up at night, that's a physiotherapist, not a longer warm-up.

Soreness that arrives two days later is normal and always has been. Sharp pain during a rep isn't, at any age.

Before you start, and a real caveat

If you're on blood pressure medication, taking anticoagulants, managing a heart condition, or you've had a joint replaced or a hernia repaired, have the conversation with your GP before the first session, and ask specifically about breath-holding under load and about overhead pressing. Take the program with you. Doctors give much better answers when they can see the actual sets and reps rather than the phrase "a bit of weight training".

And the honest trade-off. Free weights build balance and coordination that machines don't. But if you've got a wrecked shoulder, poor eyesight, or you train alone in a garage with nobody within shouting distance, machines are a completely legitimate choice. A leg press at seventy isn't a failure of nerve. A man training hard on machines three days a week beats a man doing barbell work he's afraid of, every time.

The two things outside the gym

Eat protein at every meal, not just at dinner. A palm-sized portion of meat, fish, eggs or dairy, three times a day. Older muscle is less responsive to the same meal than young muscle is, which means spreading it out matters more now than it did.

And walk. Thirty to forty minutes on the days you don't lift, outside, at a pace that makes conversation slightly effortful. That's your heart, your hips and your sleep, all bought at once.

The test that actually matters

Once a month, lie flat on your back on the living room floor and stand up without using your hands. However you manage it. Roll, kneel, whatever works.

Keep that one, and a lot of other decisions stay yours.