01/03/2026
Strength training for me at the moment involves loosely following a program I wrote for myself 3 days week. I’m currently prioritising improving cardio fitness more, so have dropped 1-2 hours a week of strength training to make room for that. My goal is to maintain strength and muscle in the mean time.
I would love to be progressing strength, or adding muscle, but am realistic that I haven’t been progressing either of those things for a long time now and maintenance is the current goal. I’m ok with that.
I organise my program generally as: big, compound movement first; more isolated movements to follow, generally in upper body/ lower body super sets to save time. Session ~ 45-60 minutes in length.
For the compound movement (squat, bench or deadlift), I tend to do 4x4-6 reps, not including a warm up set. I much prefer lower reps of heavy compound movements because they are HARD, and I prefer loading them up heavy, but doing less of them.
(Side note: I have been rehabbing a hamstring issue left over from hyrox & removed squats/deadlifts for a few weeks. When I added them back in, I increased to 8-10 reps at a much lighter weight.)
For the other movements, I tend to do 3x8-12. I rarely go to 12 reps.
Im likely to do 8 reps of something like lat pulldown or split squats, which use multiple muscle groups, and 10 reps of something like knee extension, which uses less. I rarely go to 12 reps on anything.
I know that as long as I am picking heavy weights, (heavy meaning, the last few reps are very challenging - not a specific number) the exercise will be effective.
I find it boring to do lots of reps, hence defaulting to picking weights heavy enough I cant make it to 12 reps. Because of years of training, I know what weights to pick to make an 8 rep set feel adequately hard by the end. But I try to be honest with myself and do more reps if the weight is feeling easy that day.
Strength training does not need to be extremely specific - having general parameters like I have outlined here helps to maintain efficacy while also allowing the workout to adapt to the realities of life!
