The whole plan. On two pages.

The normal week

Three sessions. Forty-five minutes each.

For example Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Any three days with a day between works. Two days in a row is fine when the week won't allow a gap. A session moved beats a session missed.

Every session has the same shape

• Two or three hard sets of each. Hard means you stop about two reps before you'd fail.
• Reps: 6 to 12 a set. Give each lift a range inside that; 8 to 10 is a good start.
• Rest: about two minutes between hard sets.
• Progress: add a rep or a little weight most weeks. When you hit the top of the range on every set, add the smallest jump next time.
• Big lifts first. Anything extra, like arms or calves, goes at the end and is the first thing cut.

Exercise options

Pick the version your body tolerates and your gym has. Machines count.

The bad week

Two sessions. Thirty minutes each.

The same plan, made small.

• The big three only: your squat or hinge, your push, your pull.
• Two hard sets of each, about two reps short.
• Keep the weight. Cut the sets.
• Cut from the end, never the start.
• Move it, don't miss it. Don't double up: if Tuesday can't move, just do Thursday.
• Write it down before you need it. Two slots in the calendar, with a day and an hour.
• Ill or hurt? That isn't a bad week. Rest.
• Back after a month or more off? Start where you left off, a little lighter for the first week or two. No punishment week.

The travel week

Two sessions. Thirty minutes each.

Two hard sets of each lift.

• Hotel gym, one dumbbell: goblet squat, dumbbell press, one-arm row.
• No gym: pack a band. Band squat, band press or push-ups, band row anchored in the door.
• No band and no gym? Walk. Push-ups and split squats in the room still keep the habit alive.
• Light weight or band, more than about 15 reps? Go to the end of the set: stop at the last clean rep, or one before it. Two reps short is too hard to judge on long sets.
• Make a light weight harder: three seconds on the way down, a pause at the bottom, or one leg or one arm at a time.
• Expect to hold, not to set records. A travel week holds muscle better than top-end strength.

Never go to the end of a set alone under a loaded barbell. A dumbbell can be put down.

The food rules

Protein first. Then the food you like.

1. Protein at every meal. It does most of the work.
2. Aim for about 1.6 g of protein per kilo of bodyweight a day. For an 85 kg man, that's about 135 g.
3. Make each meal a real dose: about 0.4 g per kilo. For an 85 kg man, about 35 g: a palm and a half of meat or fish, not a small pot of yoghurt.
4. Then eat the food you like around it. Pizza on Friday is fine. Have the chicken first and two slices instead of five.
5. One protein you'll happily eat at every meal, and two fallback meals you can make without thinking. Mine: chicken and eggs most days; tuna or salmon with rice as the fallbacks.
6. Decide dinner before you're hungry, not in front of the fridge.
7. Weekends: protein at breakfast, dinner decided, and the number of drinks decided before the first one.
8. Travel: protein every meal, even if it's eggs at the buffet and a burger at the airport. One real meal a day where you don't count anything. No catching up when you get home. Hold your weight and you've won.
9. Eating out: build the plate around protein, then pick one extra: the bread, the dessert or the drinks. Not all three. Have a regular order. Mine is boiled skinless chicken, plain steamed rice and cucumber from a chicken shop near home.

If you have kidney disease or any other medical condition, talk to your doctor before you raise your protein.

The sleep rules

• Seven hours most nights.
• The same bedtime on a Tuesday and a Saturday.
• The phone out of the bedroom.
• No caffeine after two in the afternoon.
• Bad night? Do the session, keep the weight, don't chase a best. Bad run of nights? Fix the bedtime.

The log sheet

One line per lift, every session. Write the weight before you leave the gym. Every two weeks, fill in one line: waist, sessions done, bad weeks, photos, average sleep.