How does the workout plan builder work?
- Answer the health check. Five yes or no questions. If you answer yes to any of them, the planner suggests speaking to a doctor first and keeps the plan gentle.
- Tell it about you. Your age, your weight and how much strength training you have done. Weight is only used to estimate calories.
- Describe your week. Your main goal, how many days you can train, how long each session can be, what equipment you have and anything sore to work around.
- Get your plan. A weekly schedule with every exercise linked to its how-to page in our exercise library, sets, reps and rest, a cardio target, a 4-week progression and a calorie estimate.
- Print it or save it as a PDF. Nothing you enter is stored.
What is the plan based on?
Every number in the plan comes from public guidelines rather than our own opinion.
| Part of the plan | What the planner does | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cardio | Aims for 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 300 if your goal is fat loss or stamina | WHO 2020 guidelines |
| Strength days | 2 to 3 days for beginners, up to 4 for experienced lifters, every major muscle group at least twice a week | WHO 2020, CDC, ACSM 2009 |
| Reps and sets | 8 to 12 reps a set, 2 sets for beginners and 3 for everyone else | CDC, ACSM 2009 |
| Rest between sets | 1 to 2 minutes, under 90 seconds for stamina, up to 3 to 5 minutes on heavy strength sets | ACSM 2009 |
| Progression | Adds 2 to 10 percent to the weight once you can beat your target reps by 1 or 2 | ACSM 2009 |
| Age 65 and over | Adds balance practice on 3 days | WHO 2020 guidelines |
| Calories | Estimates calories burned from your weight and published activity values | 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities |
The World Health Organization's 2020 guidelines recommend that adults do "at least 150–300 min of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity" a week, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, plus muscle strengthening that involves "all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week". The CDC adds the detail: "Try to do 8–12 repetitions per activity, which counts as one set," and "to gain even more benefits, do two or three sets."
How many days a week should you train?
It depends on your experience. The American College of Sports Medicine's position stand on resistance training recommends 2 to 3 days a week for beginners, 3 to 4 for intermediate lifters and 4 to 5 for advanced lifters.
The planner caps strength training at 4 days, so every muscle group gets two sessions a week with a day between them. With 2 or 3 days it builds full-body sessions. With 4 days it alternates upper body and lower body. Extra days become cardio days.
How does the planner choose your exercises?
Each session fills a list of muscle groups in order of importance: legs, chest, back and core first, then shoulders, arms and calves as time allows. For each one, it picks an exercise from the library that matches your equipment and experience. A 20-minute session gets 4 exercises and a 60-minute session gets 7.
If you mark an area as sore, the exercises that load it most are left out. For example, sore knees remove lunges, split squats and step-ups. That is a cautious default, not a diagnosis. Pain that lasts or keeps coming back is worth getting checked by a doctor or physiotherapist.
How are the calories estimated?
The planner multiplies your weight by the time spent and by MET values, standard estimates of how hard an activity is, from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Strength sessions use a range of 3.5 METs (several exercises at 8 to 15 reps) to 5.0 (squats and deadlifts). Walking uses 3.8 for a moderate pace to 4.8 for a brisk one, from the Compendium's walking values.
Treat the result as a rough range. The values are averages, and the 2024 update focuses on adults aged 19 to 59, so the estimate may run high for older adults.
Should you check with a doctor first?
Most healthy adults can start gently without one. The ACSM's screening recommendations focus on three things: how active you already are, whether you have "signs or symptoms and/or known cardiovascular, metabolic, or renal disease", and how hard you plan to exercise. The planner's health check asks about the same kinds of things.
WHO also advises that people who are not yet active "Start with small amounts of physical activity and gradually increase frequency, intensity and duration over time," and that "Those who develop new symptoms when increasing their levels of activity should consult a healthcare provider." If you are pregnant, recently gave birth, or live with a long-term condition, speak to your doctor or midwife about what suits you.
What else will help?
Learn each exercise from its page in the exercise library, where every move has steps, common mistakes and a demonstration. To check how hard your cardio is, try the talk test or the target heart rate calculator. For the bigger picture, read how much exercise you actually need.
