How I Train

Whenever someone finds out I lift, the first question is always "what's your routine?" - and I think they expect some elaborate six-day program with a spreadsheet attached. The truth is a bit of an anticlimax: I train three times a week, hit my whole body each session, walk on a treadmill for twenty minutes, and go home. That's it. That's the routine.

But it took me years of trial and error to arrive at something that simple, and that's really what this post is about. One thing before we start, though: none of this is advice. I'm not a trainer or a nutritionist, and I still consider myself a beginner who's learning something new every month. This is just my personal journey and what I've found works for my body. Yours might want something completely different, and that's perfectly fine.

Where it started

I started training in June 2021, and for the first couple of years it was mostly home workouts - nothing glamorous, just me, some basic equipment and whatever consistency I could scrape together. Looking back, those home sessions mattered less for the muscle and more for the habit. By the time I joined a proper gym in December 2023, showing up was already second nature, and that's when things really started moving for me.

Like a lot of keen beginners, I assumed more training meant more results, so I trained six days a week. On paper it looked impressive. In practice I was tired all the time and I couldn't perform my workouts properly - the quality fell apart somewhere around Thursday every single week. So I dropped to five days. Still flat. Then four. Closer. Eventually I settled on three sessions a week, and personally, that's where everything clicked: better recovery, better performance, and I actually look forward to every session now instead of dragging myself through half of them.

I'm genuinely not saying six days is wrong - plenty of people seem to do brilliantly on it. It just wasn't right for my body, and it took me a while to be honest with myself about that.

My routine today

I follow a full body split, which means every session trains my entire body rather than dedicating days to individual muscles. Three sessions a week with a rest day between each, which gives my muscles roughly 48 hours to recover before I train them again. From what I've felt, they seem to appreciate it.

As for how I actually lift:

• Slow and controlled. I'd rather feel the muscle doing the work than swing a heavier weight around with momentum. Technique first, load second - that order has served me much better than the reverse ever did.
• No ego lifting. Nobody at the gym is checking what I'm lifting, and the one person who pays the price for a silly weight is me. I train hard, but hard within what I can control.
• 3 to 4 sets per exercise, around 2 minutes rest between sets. I used to rush my rest and my later sets always suffered for it. Two minutes seems to be what my body needs to give every set an honest effort.
• Gradual progression. When a weight starts feeling manageable across all my sets, I nudge it up a little. It's the most boring part of my training and, I suspect, the most important.
• I don't force it. If my body doesn't feel ready - a niggle, a rough night's sleep, a weight that suddenly feels heavier than it should - I back off that day. Personally, I'd much rather stay consistent for years than push through one stubborn session and spend two months injured.

My workouts are never random, either. I walk in knowing exactly what I'm doing that day, because back when I improvised I'd somehow end up doing my three favourite exercises and calling it training. I follow a structured routine and swap exercises every couple of months - partly to keep things interesting, and partly because I've found the change helps me keep progressing.

One thing I'd gently offer to anyone building their own routine: experiment. Everyone's body responds differently, and an exercise that works beautifully for someone else might feel like nothing to you. It took me ages to learn this. Try different movements until you find the ones where you can genuinely feel the muscle contracting and the movement feels right, then settle on those. The best exercises for you are the ones your body tells you about.

Cardio and stretching (the short version)

I don't run. I've made peace with that. My cardio is a 20-minute incline walk on the treadmill - incline up, steady pace, done. It's enough for my goals, it's easy on my knees, and it doesn't leave me too wrecked to recover from lifting. In my experience, the cardio you'll actually do every week beats the impressive plan you'll quietly abandon by February.

Before every session I stretch. I know opinions vary on this, but personally I feel noticeably more prepared when I've warmed up properly, and it's a habit I'm keeping.

How I eat

I track my calories every day. My maintenance sits around 2,100 calories, and when I'm cutting I aim for about 1,700. Those numbers are specific to my body and activity, so please don't borrow them - but if you're curious how tracking works, I've written about my experience with it.

Protein-wise, I aim for roughly 150 grams a day, which sounds harder than it is once you build meals around it - I've shared exactly how I hit that number without blowing my grocery budget. A few small habits do a lot of the lifting: yoghurt is my regular snack, I use skim milk because it fits my goals a little better, and my post-workout shake usually gets blended with a banana because plain shakes stop being fun very quickly.

About 15 minutes before training I have a small serve of carbs. I've found it gives me noticeably better energy for lifting - enough that I wrote a whole post about my pre-workout carbs.

What I take

My supplement shelf is short, and I want to be clear these are simply the products I've personally settled on - not endorsements, and not recommendations for anyone else:

• Optimum Nutrition creatine - I take it daily. From my own reading it's one of the few supplements with well-established research behind it, and it's inexpensive.
• Optimum Nutrition protein powder - to top up my daily protein, not to replace meals.
• Thorne Basic Nutrients - the multivitamin I've chosen. I like the formulation, though I'm the first to admit I'm no expert on the finer details.

And for the question that always comes up: no, I don't use steroids or any performance-enhancing drugs. That's a personal choice and I don't judge anyone for theirs - I'd just rather progress slowly and know that whatever I build is mine, built at whatever pace my body allows.

Sleep, and the rest of life

I aim for 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night. I personally believe recovery is where the real muscle building happens - you do the work in the gym, but the growing seems to happen while you rest. I can't hand you a study for exactly how I feel, but the difference between a well-slept week and a rough one shows up in my training every single time.

As for alcohol - I still go out with my friends and I enjoy it. On average I might drink once every couple of weeks, and even then it's usually a single 300ml schooner and I'm happy. That's not discipline so much as preference: I've noticed my recovery feels worse when I drink more, so I keep it small. My honest take is that fitness should fit into your lifestyle, not completely take it over. A routine that costs you your social life has a shelf life.

On body fat: personally, I'm happiest sitting around 15 to 20%. I've found that range realistic, sustainable and comfortable - I feel good, I'm healthy, and I'm not fighting my own life to maintain it. Your comfortable range might be different from mine, and I think comfortable-and-sustainable is the point either way.

How I track it all

Every workout I do goes into Hevy, a free app that's quietly become one of my favourite training tools. It logs every set and rep so I always know what I did last time, and my favourite feature is honestly the built-in rest timer - it buzzes when my two minutes are up, which keeps me off my phone and moving.

If you'd like to see my actual routines, my username on there is carlofontanos - my profile is public, so feel free to have a look. Just remember it's a record of what works for me, not a template for what will work for you.

A word about the gym itself

Be kind in there. Wipe down your bench, rerack your weights, share the equipment, and give people space. Everyone in that room is trying to better themselves - the experienced lifter and the person walking in terrified on day one are on the exact same mission at different mile markers.

And if I could hand every beginner one piece of my own hard-won peace of mind, it's this: focus on your own progress, not everyone else's. Someone will always be stronger, leaner and further along than you, and their timeline says absolutely nothing about yours. The only comparison that ever helped me was me versus me from three months ago.

The takeaway

Nothing about how I train is special, and honestly, that's the point. Three simple sessions, controlled lifting, twenty minutes of walking, decent food, decent sleep, and a free app to keep me honest. It took me years - home workouts, an overcooked six-day split, plenty of adjusting - to figure out that the routine I could sustain would always beat the routine that looked impressive.

So if there's anything worth taking from my story, it's not the sets and reps. It's that consistency matters more than perfection. An okay routine done for years will quietly outperform a perfect one done for three weeks. Find what your body responds to, build it around your real life, and just keep showing up. That part, at least, seems to work for everyone.