The six movements a week of training actually needs

The six

Nothing here is a brand name or an exercise. Each is a pattern, and dozens of exercises fit inside each one. That is the point: the pattern is what matters, the equipment is a detail.

Push something away from you

Press ups on the floor, a counter, or a wall. Pick the height where five feel hard.

Pull something toward you

A row with anything heavy you can hold. A bag, a band, a dumbbell.

Hinge at the hips

Weight back into your heels, chest proud, stand up tall at the top.

Sit down and stand up

To a chair and back up. Slow on the way down.

Carry something heavy

One heavy thing, one lap of the house. Stand tall the whole way.

Hold a straight line

Forearms down, hips level, breathe the entire time.

Why six and not sixty

A programme with forty exercises is not more thorough, it is harder to remember and easier to abandon. Six patterns fit in your head. You can audit a week against them in ten seconds: did I push, pull, hinge, squat, carry, brace? Anything missing is the thing to do next.

How to order them across a week

Rotate which one goes first. Whatever leads a session gets the freshest effort, so a week of two or three sessions that each start somewhere different spreads that freshness around instead of always favouring the same pattern. That is the entire programming principle, and it works at two sessions a week as well as at five.

The honest floor

On a week that falls apart, one set of each, once, is not nothing. It is most of the benefit of showing up at all. The gap between zero and one is enormous. The gap between four and five is small.