This workout plan for over 40 trains your whole body 3 times a week with exercises that go easy on the joints. It keeps the heavy lifting, because strength and muscle are what you want to hold on to. It also gives you more room to recover. Below you get the week, both sessions with sets and reps, the warm-up, and how to add weight.
What changes after 40
Your muscles still grow and get stronger after 40. What changes is recovery. A hard session takes longer to shake off, and joints complain sooner when the same movement is repeated heavy week after week.
The plan answers that in 4 ways. It uses fewer hard sets per session. It chooses exercises that let your joints move in a comfortable path: dumbbells, a trap bar, a chest-supported row. It leaves more reps in reserve. And it puts a lighter week in more often.
If you are coming back after years away, start with the lower end of every rep range and the weights you can do cleanly.
How the week looks
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| Monday | Workout A |
| Tuesday | Rest or a walk |
| Wednesday | Workout B |
| Thursday | Rest or a walk |
| Friday | Workout A |
| Saturday | Rest or a walk |
| Sunday | Rest |
A and B alternate, so the next week opens with B.
The warm-up
Spend 10 minutes on it, not 3. Do 5 minutes of easy cardio, then a few mobility drills for your hips and shoulders. Then do 2 or 3 light sets of your first exercise, each a little heavier.
The workouts
Workout A
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Goblet squat or leg press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell bench press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Chest-supported row | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Romanian deadlift | 3 | 8-10 |
| Face pull | 2 | 15-20 |
| Plank | 2 | 30-45 sec |
Workout B
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Trap bar deadlift | 3 | 6-8 |
| Lat pulldown | 3 | 8-12 |
| Incline dumbbell press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Split squat | 2 | 8-12 each leg |
| Lateral raise | 2 | 12-15 |
| Farmer’s carry | 3 | 30-40 sec |
Rest 2 minutes after the first 3 exercises and 60 to 90 seconds after the rest. A session takes about 60 minutes, warm-up included.
How to add weight
Use double progression. Stay in the rep range, and once you hit the top of it on every set with clean form, add the smallest jump available next session. Then work back up from the bottom of the range.
Leave 2 to 3 reps in reserve on most sets. Reps in reserve means how many more clean reps you could have done. It sounds easy, and over months it adds up to steady progress without the aches that end most comebacks.
Take a lighter week every 4 to 6 weeks, not 8: the same weights with about 60% of the sets.
When something hurts
A joint that aches during a lift is a signal to change the lift, not to push through it. Swap to a version that does not hurt: a leg press for a squat, a neutral-grip press for a barbell bench. Pain that stays after you swap, or that wakes you at night, belongs to a physio or a doctor.
Our guide on what to do when a lift starts to hurt covers this in more detail.
Run this plan in Trackist
Age is one of the 14 questions Trackist asks before it writes the plan. For older lifters it leans towards joint-friendly exercises and keeps the weekly volume in check. Tell it which joints bother you and in which direction, and it works around the movement that hurts, not the whole joint. A shoulder that hurts when pressing still gets rows and pulldowns. If you are coming back after a break, pick "Coming back after a break" as your experience, and the first weeks start as carefully as a beginner’s.
Before the first set, Trackist asks how you slept, how sore you are and how your energy is. Last session’s numbers sit under each field, and a line above each exercise suggests today’s weight. A plan of 6 weeks or more ends with a deload week at 60% of the sets.
If an exercise starts to hurt, Trackist Pro swaps it for one that trains the same muscle and remembers the limitation on your profile. If the sessions keep running too hard, report it again and Pro rewrites the day.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Can you build muscle after 40?
Yes. Muscle still grows from hard sets with weight that climbs over time. Recovery is slower, so you get more from 3 well-spaced sessions and a lighter week every 4 to 6 weeks than from training every day.
How many days a week should you train over 40?
Three is a good default, with a rest day or a walk between sessions. Four works if your sleep and joints hold up. More sessions than you recover from cost progress instead of adding it.
Should you lift heavy over 40?
Yes, within reason. Heavy for this plan means 6 to 12 reps with 2 or 3 left in reserve, not maximal singles. That keeps the strength and muscle benefits while going easier on your joints.
Does Trackist take age into account?
Yes. Age is one of the 14 questions. For older lifters Trackist leans towards joint-friendly exercises and keeps the weekly volume in check. It also works around any joint you flag, in the direction that hurts.
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Let Trackist write your plan
Answer 14 questions and Trackist writes a plan around your gym and your week. Log every set, and the next session shows the weight to lift. On the App Store now. Android is coming.
