In the days when my calendar wasn’t jammed with social engagements for a seven-year-old, I used to go into every workout session with a plan scribbled on a bit of paper. Exercises, sets, repetitions and rests – even the number of seconds I spent raising and lowering the weights was meticulously planned so I could more successfully chase my goals.
In lots of ways, this wasn’t a bad thing. Having a proper plan for the gym can save a fair bit of mental bandwidth: you go in, you do what the Post-it note says. If you are new to training, or you are looking to maximise your results in limited time, it is still very much what I would recommend.
The problem with this approach is that, as a rule, the fitter and stronger you get, the more complicated your workouts need to be, to make sure you are challenging yourself enough to improve. And, once your training sessions start getting more targeted, an overcrowded gym can ruin your whole day. I was beginning to find it frequently ruined mine, leaving me feeling frustrated that my carefully programmed regime had not gone to plan.
A workout calling for you to alternate between two machines that are at opposite ends of the weights area? You had better not go during the lunchtime rush. Need to do some weighted-sled pushes? Best hope no one has taken advantage of the lovely, soft artificial turf to do 20 minutes of light stretching. Want to leg-press, but someone is sitting on the machine scrolling through TikTok in between the occasional half-hearted set? Now, you have to be late back from your lunch hour, or ruin your week’s training, or try to explain the concept of sharing to a stranger.
Eventually, I hit on a solution: stop worrying about it. Like the majority of gym-goers, I don’t need to do the sort of hyper‑targeted workout I would if I were planning to enter the Olympics or strip down to Speedos and pose on stage. Yes, it’s nice to be able to lob a bag into the overhead rack without popping a shoulder, or carry an Ikea bookcase up the stairs single‑handed, but once you are strong enough to do that sort of stuff, you quickly hit the point of diminishing returns. Once I accepted that being able to do a couple more pull-ups or move up two places in the parkrun wasn’t going to make a tangible difference to my quality of life, it was very freeing.
These days, I tend to go to the gym to do … whatever the gym allows.
There are some parameters: I try to do a bit of strength training and a bit of cardio every week, because that is the science-backed way to stay healthy for more of your lifespan. I try to train all the different bits of my body, one way or another, and I try to pull more stuff than I push to redress my desk-worker slump. But other than that, I just do a combination of what I feel like and what I can. If the treadmill is busy, I will have a quick thrash on the rower. No squat racks to be found? I will grab a kettlebell. Gym floor heaving? You can get a surprisingly satisfying workout in with a bench and one heavy dumbbell.
Obviously, this takes a bit of practice. I am lucky in that I have tried many styles of workout over the years; now, in the same way that a decent chef can take whatever leftovers there are in the kitchen and whip up a feast, I can put together a decent workout without much more than a resistance band and a yoga mat.
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This flexible approach to training would have seemed sacrilege to my 30-year-old self – and still is to lots of gym bros – but, as my schedule and priorities have shifted, it has proved essential. I have learned that, once you have mastered the basics of how sets, repetitions and rest fit together, you can tinker with the details and still set yourself up for a happier and healthier dotage. Even if you never plan to go to a gym in your life.
