TRAINING ROUND A FULL LIFE

Three sessions you actually do beat five you keep meaning to. Building a week that survives work, kids and a bad night's sleep.

Most men who come to me aren't lazy. They're busy. They've got a job that runs over, kids who need dropping somewhere, and a partner who quite reasonably expects to see them at some point in the week.

So they build a five-day plan off the internet, hit it hard for a fortnight, miss a Tuesday, then a Thursday, and by week four they've stopped and decided they haven't got the discipline. They have. The plan was just never built for their life.

I'd rather you had three sessions a week you'll genuinely do for a year than five you'll do for a month. Three full-body sessions, each one covering a push, a pull, a hinge or squat, and something for the middle. Miss one and you've still hit everything twice.

Put them in the diary like meetings. Same days, same rough time. Decision fatigue is what kills consistency — if you have to work out when you're training each morning, some mornings you won't.

And have a short version. Twenty minutes, two big lifts, done. On the weeks that fall apart, the short version is what keeps the habit alive.