9 February 2026

Twice a week is the honest number for strength work

For two years my sheet had a target of three sessions a week. For two years I averaged 1.8. Last spring I changed the target to two, changed nothing else, and averaged 1.9. The behaviour moved by five per cent. The feeling about the behaviour moved completely.

Period	Target	Actual, weekly mean	Weeks at zero
Year one	3	1.7	9
Year two	3	1.9	7
Since the change	2	1.9	4

What actually changed

The zero weeks. Under the three-target, a week that started badly was already a failure by Wednesday, and a week that is already a failure gets abandoned. Under the two-target the same week is retrievable on a Saturday morning, so I retrieve it.

The routine itself

Unchanged for eighteen months, deliberately boring, five movements, about thirty-five minutes including the faffing about at either end.

• A squat pattern, three working sets.
• A hinge pattern, three working sets.
• A press, two sets, alternating overhead and horizontal by session.
• A pull, two sets.
• One carry, two trips, which is the only part I look forward to.

I add a small amount of weight when the last set of a movement feels comfortable two sessions running. That rule is slow and it is fine; the sheet says the loads have moved steadily upward for eighteen months without a single week where I felt I had pushed.

What I got wrong for two years

I treated the target as an aspiration and the actual as a shortfall, so every week generated a small amount of disappointment that had to go somewhere. Setting a target I reliably hit did not make me train more. It made the sheet stop being a list of my failures, and the sheet being pleasant to open turns out to matter more than I would have admitted.