Two Days A Week Strength Training and Bodybuilding Programs

Two days a week strength training

​​
While I prefer to train more often, training twice a week has worked for me several times and always led to success. I also have a lot of clients who only train twice a week, and they have all made good progress.

Lots of people have an all-or-nothing attitude to training. They believe it's not worth going to the gym if they can't go three or more times a week and then stop training. They would be better off doing two days consistently than giving up because they couldn't get to the gym as much as they like.
Everyone can get to the gym for two sessions a week if it's a priority for them.

I'm not the biggest and strongest, but I've gained 30kg in my adult life. At 43 years old, I'm a lean 90kg (198.4lbs) at 5'11, I've done a 230kg squat, have good cardio and flexibility, and no aches and pains at all. Lots of clients have made great progress when it comes to building muscle through training twice a week.​

---

​
​Who could this be a good option for?

• Someone with a busy schedule struggles to make it to the gym more often.
• Someone who simply doesn't want to go to the gym more often, but still wants to be stronger.
• For people who play sports and have other training commitments that are their priority, and only strength train to help improve their performance in their sport, so they can't spend an excessive amount of time lifting weights.
• Someone who has trouble recovering, or their lifestyle eats into their recovery (newborn baby, stressful job, etc
• People who have not been able to stick to a routine and want to get into the habit of training
• For a short time, when life is too busy. The key to making progress is doing this consistently over a long period of time. No matter how busy life is, I can always train two days a week and continue make progress. ​

Two Days A Week Strength Training

Key points to make two days a week training work.

• Train with intensity. You have to push the sets close to failure to make this work. Training two days a week limits the amount of exercises and volume you can do. For hypertrophy to happen, you have to train hard and get used to being uncomfortable towards the end of the sets. 
• Train the full body in each session. This allows you to get 2 x a week training for each muscle.
• Ideally, you should spread the sessions out so they're not close to each other, so you're fully recovered for each session. For example, Monday-Thursday or Wednesday - Saturday. ​

Click to skip to Two Days A Week Bodybuilding Training

Two Days a Week Strength Program

How to Set up Your Training When Training Twice a Week

Option 1 - ​Full Body Two Days a Week

Workout A  Squat  Bench press  Assistance work ​Workout B  Deadlift or Trap bar deadlift  Overhead press (or bench press again if you want to bench press twice a week) Assistance work​

Workout A	Workout B
Trap bar deadlift	Squat
Overhead press	Bench Press
Lower body exercise (Normally a quad exercise)	Lower body exercise (normally a hamstring exercise)
Upper body push exercise (Often a chest exercise)	Upper body push exercise (Often a shoulder exercise)
Back exercise	Back exercise
Arm exercise	Arm exercise

Sometimes I'll take out a lower body or a upper body push exercise for another back exercise.

To have some variety, I'll have two sessions for A and B and alternate temh.
The main lifts stay the same, but I'll rotate through the assistance exercises  

Workout A ​​Week 1	Workout B  ​Week 1	Workout A  ​Week 2	Workout B  ​Week 2
Trap bar deadlift	Squat	Trap bar deadlift	Squat
Overhead press	Bench press	Overhead press	Bench press
Leg extension	RDL	Leg press	Leg Curl
Chest press	DB overhead	Dips	Machine shoulder press
Lat pull down	DB row	Chin ups	Cable row
JM press	Curl	Triceps pushdown	Hammer curls

​Option 2 - ​Upper/Lower Assistance Exercises

Workout A  Squat  Overhead press (or bench press or a bench variation if you want to bench press twice a week) Upper body assistance work Workout B  Deadlift or Trap bar deadlift  Bench press  Lower body assistance work​ I'll often add arm exercises on to Workout B, or lateral raises and rear delt work.

Option 3 - ​Full body with more frequency for the deadlift, squat and bench press. ​Might be a better option for powerlifting.

Workout A  Squat Bench press  Deadlift or deadlift variation (using straight sets. Eg, 4 x 6) Assistance work Workout B  Deadlift or Trap bar deadlift Overhead press (or bench press for straight sets such as 5 x 2) Squat or squat variation (using straight sets. Eg, 4 x 6) Assistance work​ I personally don't like this option, but some people prefer to squat twice a week.

In order to have a bit of variety in the exercises, I'll have two Workout A and B sessions, and I'll rotate through them.
The main lifts stay the same, but the assistance exercises alternate.

Here's an example using Option 1-Full body

Week 1 ​Workout A	Week 1 ​Workout B	Week 2 ​Workout A	Week 2 ​Workout B
Squat	Deadlift	Squat	Deadlift
Bench press	Overhead press	Bench press	Overhead press
RDL	Leg extension	Leg curl	Safety bar squat
DB overhead press	Close grip bench press	Lateral raises	​Dips
Cable row	Lat pull down	Dumbbell row	Chin ups
Curl	JM press	Hammer curl	Triceps extensions

Click to skip to Two Days a Week Bodybuilding Training

​​Main Exercise Progression

Top set-Back off set​ ​You'll do two work sets, each with a different rep range. Do your heaviest set first after warm-up sets. Set 1 - Do as many quality reps as you can. I normally aim for somewhere between 6 and 8 reps. Increasing the weight for the next workout when you hit the top of the rep range  Set 2: Do as many quality reps as you can. I normally aim for somewhere between 8 and 12 reps.  Increasing the weight for the next workout when you hit the top of the rep range ​ You can also do this with two back off sets so you're doing three working sets

Rep Goal System With this method, you'll set a rep goal for all the sets together and then increase the weight for one set next session when you hit that rep target.  For example, if you set 20 reps over 2 sets, it might look like this. ​ ​Week 1 140kg x 12 140kg x 10 Total reps = 22. Increase the weight for one set for the next session. Week 2 145kg x 9140kg x 10 Total reps = Keep the weight the same for the next session. Week 3 145kg x 12 140kg x 10 Total reps = 22. Increase the weight for the second set for the next session. Week 4 145kg x 12 145kg x 10 Total reps = 22. Keep the weight the same for the next session. Week 5 150kg x 9 145kg x 11 Total reps = 20. Increase the weight for one set for the next session. Week 6 150kg x9 150kg x 7 Total reps = 16. Keep the weights the same for the next session. You can repeat this cycle until progress slows.

Top Set Linear Periodization ​​The first week, you work up to a top set of 8 reps. You then add a small amount of weight every week and try to get as many reps as you can until you can only get 3 good reps on the top set. Try to drag out the cycle by making the smallest jumps in weight you can. You'll do one back-off set, which is the same way as you did the top set, but this time you'll start with 12 reps and stop at. The first week, you'll do a set of 12. You'll then add a small amount of weight each week until you can only do 7 reps. Top top - 8 to 3 reps Back off set 12- 7 reps Week 1  150kg x 8   - 130kg x 12 Week 2  152.5kg x 8 -132.5 x 12 Week 3  155kg x 8    - 135kg x 12 Week 4  157.5kg x 7 -137.5kg x 11 Week 5  160kg x 7    - 140kg x 11 Week 6  162.5kg x 6 - 142.5 x 10 Week 7  165kg x 6    - 145kg x 10 Week 8   167.5kg      - 147.5kg x 10 Week 9  170kg x 4     - 150kg x 9 Week 10  172.5kg x 4- 152.5kg x 9 Week 11  175kg x 4   - 155kg x 9 Week 12 177.5 x 3     - 157kg x 8 As you only manage 3 reps on the the top set, you go back and repeat the cycle, but this time start the next cycle with 155kg. You'll try to get more reps with the weights you did before and try and finish the cycle with more than 175kg. You don't have to go from 8 to 3 reps. It can be 12-5, 12-3, 10- 3 reps, etc.

​If you're doing bench press twice a week you can have a heavy and light day or use the double progression or rep goal method on the second day. 

Make sure you keep the reps for the main lifts fast and crisp. Don't make the mistake of letting the main lifts get too grindy. The temptation is to push for extra reps to try to beat the previous week and let your form go. 

​Assistance Work

The assistance exercises are there to fill in any gaps, injury prevention and to build muscle. I like to use exercises that require very little set up and I can easily push to failure without having to worry about technique break down.

Upper Body Assistance

Close-grip bench press Incline bench press Dumbbell bench press Dumbbell incline bench press ​Dips   Machine chest press ​Machine overhead press Floor press ​Dumbbell overhead press Chin-ups, pull-up Machine row​ T-bar row One Arm Cable Row Dumbbell row Lat pull-down ​​​

Lower Body Assistance

​Paused squats Front squats Safety bar squats Leg press Hack squat Glute ham raise Romanian deadlift Split squats Hamstring curl Leg extension

Core and Arm Exercises

Standing wheel roll out Reverse hypers Barbell curl Dumbbell curl Hammer curls Triceps push down Triceps extension​

I often used the rep goal system, a couple of warm-ups with an all-out set, or rest-pause for my assistance work. Myo-reps and drop sets are useful as well. Doing two exercises as supersets is a great time saver. Giant sets are as well, but not always practical if you train in a busy gym.
As I was doing two main exercises and a bench or squat variation in a workout, there wasn't a lot of time for assistance work, so I wanted to be able to push sets to, or close to, failure.

Assistance Work

Two warm-up sets with an all-out set Here, you do two easier sets before doing a set for as many reps as you can.  Set 1: 60% of the final set x 8 Set 2: 80% of the final set x 8​ Set 3: As many reps as you are aiming for, between 8 and 12 reps. Increase the weight when you hit the top of the rep range

​Super Sets or Giant Sets:  ​Super sets are when two exercises are done back to back, and rest is only taken after the second exercise. Giant sets are just like supersets, but with 3 or more exercises. You only rest at the end of the last exercise. These are very useful to use for assistance work when only training twice a week, as you can do a lot of work in a short time.

Rep Goal System: ​ With the rep goal system, you set the number of reps you want to achieve in a certain number of sets. The "Rep Goal" is the total reps performed for all sets. You don't perform this number for each set.  For example, aiming for 30 reps over 3 sets. You then go for as many good reps with good form as you can on each set. Once you manage to do all the reps, you can then add weight for for set next workout. 100kg x 12 Rest 2 minutes 100kg x 10 Rest 2 minutes 100kg x 8 The next session I would use 105kg for the first set and 100kg for the 2nd and 3rd set.

Rest-Pause Sets:  With rest-pause sets, you go to failure on three sets with 15-30 seconds rest between each set. 1st set - 17 reps Rest 15 seconds 2nd set-10 reps Rest 15 seconds 3rd set - 4 reps

Myo-Reps Sets Myo-rep sets are a form of rest-pause. You do a set of 10-15 where you reach failure, or very close to it. Rest 20 seconds, then do a set of 3 to 5 reps, aiming for 5 reps. Rest 20 seconds and repeat the set for the same number of reps (3 to 5 reps) Repeat this process (set of 3-5, rack, 20 seconds rest) until the first time you hit 1 rep less than the first set of 3-5. ​An example, 1st set- 14reps Rest 20 seconds 2nd set- 5 reps Rest 20 seconds 3rd set - 5 reps Rest 20 seconds 4th set- 4 reps. Stop here, as you did one less rep than you did on the first mini-set. ​Don't use this for Romanian, stiff-legged deadlifts, or any core exercises.

Drop Sets The drop set is a technique in which you perform an exercise until failure, then immediately reduce the weight load for an additional set or sets. Normally, I reduce the weight by 20% each drop. Don't rest between sets. Only take as long as it takes to change the weights. I don't use drop sets often, but they can be useful for arm work at the end of the session.

 

Two Days A Week Bodybuilding Program

Key points to make two days a week training work.

• Train with intensity. You have to push the sets close to failure to make this work. Training two days a week limits the amount of exercises and volume you can do. For hypertrophy to happen, you have to train hard and get used to being uncomfortable towards the end of the sets. 
• Train the full body in each session. This allows you to get 2 x a week training for each muscle.
• Ideally, you should spread the sessions out so they're not close to each other, so you're fully recovered for each session. For example, Monday-Thursday or Wednesday - Saturday. ​

Two Days a Week (43 years old)

A	B
Squat variation	Hinge Exercise
Flat or Incline Press	Overhead Press ​(Could also be a second flat or incline press or dip)
Back	Back
Hamstring	Quads
Delts	Chest
Arms	Arms
Optional extra exercise to fill in any gaps	Optional extra exercise to fill in any gaps
Optional extra exercise to fill in any gaps	Optional extra exercise to fill in any gaps

Session A

• Squat variation
• Flat or incline press
• Hamstring exercise
• Back exercise (horizontal row)
• Delts isolation
• Arm work

Session B

• Hinge variation
• Overhead press (or a second flat/incline press or dips)
• Quad exercise
• Back exercise (vertical pull)​
• Chest isolation
• Arm work

This is how I like to set it up, but adjustments can and should be made based on you and your goals. The table above shows 6 exercises per session. For my clients, I would normally give them 5-6 exercises per session. I personally do 8 or 9 exercises.

My arms were always a weak point (but have improved in recent years), so I do two arm exercises per session. I would add extra back work to what's suggested above, plus calf raises and forearm work.

Flat or Incline Press	Machine Incline Press Machine Chest Press Dumbbell Flat Bench Incline Dumbbell Press Incline Barbell Bench
Squat Variation	Hack Squat Pendulum Squat ​Leg Press Back Squat
Overhead Press	Viking Press Machine Shoulder Press Seated Dumbbell Overhead ​Barbell Seated Overhead Press
Hip Hinge	RDL Back Extensions Deadlift
Back	High Row T-Bar Row Lat Pulldown Reverse Lat Pulldown Machie row
Chest Isolation	Pec Dec Machine Incline Chest Fly Dips
Shoulder Isolation	Dumbbell Lateral Raise Cable Lateral Raise Machine Lateral Raise
Arms	Poliquin Push Downs Push Downs One arm push-downs Extensions ​Barbell Curl DB Curl Machine Preacher Curl ​Hammer Curls
Extra Exercises to Fill in Gaps	Wrist Roller Rear Delt Flies Wheel roll out Ab Machine Calf raises More back work

Progression Schemes 

Top set with a back off set: We'll work up to a top set and aim for  8 reps.  Set 1: Aim for 4-8 reps Set 2: Aim for 8-12  reps You increase the weight in the next session when you’ve hit the rep target. It’s important to make sure all the reps are good and fast. Don’t do slow and grindy reps to try to reach your rep target.  An example of what it looks like, Workout 1 Set 1 - 100kg x 8. Increase the weight next session. Set 2 - 90kg x 12. Increase the weight next session. Workout 2 Set 1 - 105kg x 6. Keep the weight the same for the next session Set 2 - 95kg x 10. Keep the weight the same for the next session Workout 3 Set 1 - 105kg x 7. Keep the weight the same for the next session Set 2 - 95kg x 12. Increase the weight next session.

Rep Goal: With the rep goal system, you’ll set a rep goal for all the sets and increase the weight on one set when you’ve hit the rep goal  Examples are, 20 reps over 2 sets 25 reps over 3 sets 25 reps over 2 sets 30 reps over 3 sets There are loads of options you can pick depending on the exercise and goal. In this example, we'll aim for 20 reps over 2 sets, Week 1 140kg x 12 140kg x 10 Total reps = 22. Increase the weight for one set for the next session. Week 2 145kg x 10 140kg x 9 Total reps =19. Keep the weight the same for the next session. Week 3 145kg x 12 140kg x 10 Total reps = 22. Increase the weight for one set for the next session. Week 4 145kg x 13 145kg x 8 Total reps = 21. Increase the weight for one set for the next session. Week 5 150kg x 9 145kg x 9 Total reps = 18. Keep the weights the same for the next session.

Rest-Pause Sets:  With rest-pause sets, you go to failure on 5 sets with 30 seconds rest between each set. ​For example 1st set - 15 reps Rest 30 seconds 2nd set-10 reps Rest 30 seconds 3rd set - 7 reps Rest 30 seonds 4th set - 5 reps Rest 30 seonds  5th set - 2 reps You can set a rep target for the 1st set, or for total reps over all 5 sets. ​Rest-pause training saves time, which is useful when only training twice a week.

My Routine

A	B
Hack Squat Top Set (6-8) - Back Off Set (10-12)	RDL Top Set (6-8) - Back Off Set (10-12)
Life Fitness Incline Press Rep Goal: 25 reps over 2 sets	Seated Barbell Overhead Press ​​Rep Goal: 20 reps over 2 sets
Seated Leg Curl ​Rep Goal: 25 reps over 2 sets	Leg Extension ​Rep Goal: 25 reps over 2 sets
High Row  Top set (8-10 - Back Off Set (12-15	T-Bar Row  Top set (8-10 - Back Off Set (12-15)
Back Extension ​Top set (8-12) - Back Off Set (12-15)	Lat Pulldown ​​Rep Goal: 20 reps over 2 sets
Dumbbell Lateral Raise Rep Goal 25 reps over 3 sets	Pec Dec ​​Rep Goal: 30 reps over 3 sets
Poliquin Push Downs  ​​Rep Goal: 25 reps over 2 sets	DB Curl  ​​Rep Goal: 25 reps over 2 sets
Cable Curls ​​​Rest Pause x 5	Overhead Extensions Rest Pause: x 5
Standing Calf Raise	Standing Calf Raise

Two days a week training (43 years old)

Two days a week training (43 years old)

What were the main benefits of training two days a week?

​The main one was that fitting the workouts into my life while I had a lot going on was very easy. I tried to keep the same training days that were spread out evenly (Sunday and Wednesday), but with only having two workouts to fit in I could be flexible without it causing any problems. It does take away the excuse of not having time to train as everyone can find the time for two sessions a week.
​
I found my motivation went up. I was looking forward to each workout and excited about training and that I would try and get a PR. I haven't had a bad workout since I started training twice a week as I always feel recovered, fresh and excited about training when I start the workout.
If you're going through a stressful time, or not getting much sleep you are likely to find this easier to recover from than if you were training 4+times a week. My joints also felt great doing this after doing this.

If strength and building muscle isn't the main priority it can give you more time to do cardio and mobility work. I did more much-needed mobility work at home while watching TV as I had a little more spare time. Jim Wendler has a template in his books called 2x2x2. With this, you do two strength workouts, two mobility workouts and two conditioning/cardio workouts. This can be a well-balanced way for you to train.

What are the main negatives of just training twice a week?​

There is only so much you can do in just two workouts. You can't spend as much time working on weak points and it can be hard to get a lot of volume in.
The workouts have to be really hard if you're going to progress, and I had to cram so much into the sessions. 

What to do on your five rest days​

I recommend still being active on the other days. You can do more mobility or cardio work. If you have time to do more, you can do more mobility or cardio work. When I train twice a week, I'll do hill sprints twice a week as well. I have used in the past are exercises you can do at home. I had a chin-up bar and ab wheel at home, so on my rest days, I did a lot of chin-ups and some standing wheel rollouts.

One of the most frustrating things about being a personal trainer is seeing people throw away all their hard work by stopping training completely, or by taking large breaks when life is busy. They end up just working to regain what they had achieved before. I would rather they trained twice a week when life is busy than stop.

You might surprise yourself with what you can achieve while doing so little.

Two Days A Week Strength Training

Chris Adams
Personal Trainer
Nottingham
West Bridgford ​