Full body, 2 days a week

How to run the programme

Leave two or three rest days between the sessions, for example Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday. You do workout A and workout B once each every week. Start with five to ten minutes of easy cardio and a couple of light sets of the first exercise, as in the guide to warming up.

With two sessions a week, every major muscle group is trained twice, once in each workout. That is why the sessions are a little longer and have more sets than full body three days. If you miss a session, do it the next time you can and carry on from there. Two sessions that happen beat three that don't.

How to progress

Each lift comes round once a week, so it is the week that counts, not the session. Once you hit the top number in every set, for example 3 × 8 on the bench press, add the smallest step of weight the following week. If you don't make it, repeat the same weight. There is more on this in the guide to progressive overload.

With a week between attempts it is easy to forget what you lifted. Write down every set in a training log, and you will know where to start.

Swap an exercise if you need to

If your gym is missing a piece of equipment, switch to an exercise with the same movement: the leg press instead of the squat, the seated shoulder press instead of the overhead press, or pull-ups instead of the lat pulldown. If an exercise hurts, rather than just feeling heavy, stop doing it and have a doctor or physiotherapist take a look. If you find time for a third day later on, full body three days is the next step.