5 days ago
Personal Trainer Shares the 2-Day Workout Plan That Helps Beginner Lifters Make Big Gains
When you're just starting out in the gym, it can be tempting to jump into a six-days-a-week program like your favorite fitness influencers. But between learning how to train properly and giving your body enough time (and fuel) to recover, you probably need way less time in the gym than you think. While chasing that post-workout high might make you want to show up every day, it's not the most effective approach for a beginner.
In an interview with longevity specialist Peter Attia, M.D., exercise scientist Mike Israetel, Ph.D., broke down the exact two-day workout plan he uses to help newbie lifters make big gains.
'If you're training twice a week—let's call it Monday and Thursday for simplicity—you do want some symmetry,' Israetel says. 'So you don't want a situation where you train with weights Monday and Tuesday, and then you take the rest of the week to do other stuff.'If you're only working out two days a week, you need to make every session count. Bro splits—where you target one or two muscle groups at a time—might work if you're training five or six days, but with limited time, they're not your friend. That's why full-body workouts are the move. They hit all your major muscle groups and give you the most bang for your buck.
"If you push them hard, maybe at most half a week, you can train every major muscle group of your body in every single session that you do," Israetel says. "So both Monday and Thursday, we'll have every major muscle group being trained."
Because you're only training twice a week, Israetel says you need exercises that hit more than one muscle at a time. So skip the calf raises and focus on compound lifts like barbell back squats, deadlifts, and bench press—they deliver way more return for your effort.
"Then we're using muscles very efficiently because we're pushing multiple muscles to their limits in one exercise," he adds. "This is generally going to be compound movements, multi-joint movements—things like pullups, pull downs, barbell and dumbbell bent-over rows."
Personal Trainer Shares the 2-Day Workout Plan That Helps Beginner Lifters Make Big Gains first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 13, 2025
