1. Choose the days you can actually train
Start with the number of days you can manage most weeks, not your best week. Three sessions you finish beat five you keep missing. Leave at least a day between hard sessions for the same muscles.
2. Choose a split that fits those days
- 2–3 days: full body each session.
- 4 days: upper body and lower body, twice each.
- 5–6 days: push, pull and legs, or a mix of upper, lower and full-body days.
Most people do well training each muscle group about twice a week. If you train less often than your split assumes, a full-body split covers more in fewer sessions.
3. Set a session length you will finish
Decide how long you have, then fit the session to it. In 45 minutes you might do four or five exercises; in 30, three, with the main lift first. Short on time? Keep the main lift and the hardest work, and cut accessories. See how to fit a gym workout into 30 minutes.
4. Spread the work across the week
Count hard sets per muscle group across the week. Many lifters aim for roughly 10 to 20, built up gradually; beginners need fewer. If one muscle group gets far more than the others, rebalance rather than adding more sessions.
5. Plan how you will progress
Pick a rep range for each exercise and add reps until you reach the top of it, then add weight. Record every set so you can see it. See how to track progressive overload.
6. Plan for weeks that go wrong
You will miss sessions, find equipment taken and get bored. Decide now what you will do:
An example week
Four days, about 45 minutes each: Monday upper body, Tuesday lower body, Thursday upper body, Saturday lower body. Each session starts with one main lift (bench, squat, overhead press, deadlift) followed by three or four accessories. Each muscle group is trained twice, and there is a rest day before the second half of the week.
Letting Kit plan it
When you start, Kit recommends a well-known routine for the days, equipment and experience you choose. The routines range from three to six days a week, for a full gym, dumbbells only or bodyweight. Each day it prepares the next workout from that routine and what you have actually trained, fitted to the time you have. See how Kit adapts your workouts.
