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Plan your minimum effective week.
Tell it which days you have, how long, where you will be and what kit is in the room. You get two sessions that add up to a banked week, plus the 20-minute and no-kit versions for when the week goes sideways.
Your minimum effective week
Two sessions, 30 minutes, home.
Monday · Session A
- Goblet squat · 3 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell floor press · 3 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell row · 3 × 8–12 reps a side · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Dumbbell Romanian deadlift · 2 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 14 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Plank · 2 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 3 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, hip circles, 10 squats, 5 slow push-ups. Rest 60 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
Thursday · Session B
- Dumbbell Romanian deadlift · 3 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 14 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell row · 3 × 8–12 reps a side · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell overhead press · 3 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 8 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Dumbbell reverse lunge · 2 × 8–12 reps a side · ≈ 8 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Plank · 2 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 3 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, hip circles, 10 squats, 5 slow push-ups. Rest 60 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
Why this is enough
- Every major movement pattern is trained twice in the week: squat, hinge, push, pull and core, with single-leg work when time allows. That coverage, repeated, is what drives strength.
- 2 rest days between sessions, so you recover and come back a little stronger.
- Thirty minutes covers all core movements at three sets plus the secondary work at two. Most people never need more than this.
- Dumbbells let the main lifts load. When every set hits the top of its range, the next session adds about 2 kg, capped at the heaviest pair you own.
- Nothing here is a streak. Miss one and the week is at one. The next week starts at zero, never in debt.
When the week goes wrong
The 20-minute version
Session A
- Goblet squat · 2 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell floor press · 2 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell row · 2 × 8–12 reps a side · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Plank · 1 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 2 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, 10 bodyweight squats. Rest 45 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
Session B
- Dumbbell Romanian deadlift · 2 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 14 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell row · 2 × 8–12 reps a side · ≈ 12 kg per hand (paired 1)
- Dumbbell overhead press · 2 × 8–12 reps · ≈ 8 kg per hand (paired 2)
- Plank · 1 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 2 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, 10 bodyweight squats. Rest 45 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
The no-kit version (hotel room, spare room, anywhere)
Session A
- Pause squat · 3 × 8–15 reps (paired 1)
- Push-up · 3 × 8–15 reps (paired 1)
- Towel door row · 3 × 8–12 reps (paired 2)
- Single-leg glute bridge · 2 × 8–15 reps (paired 2)
- Plank · 2 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 3 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, hip circles, 10 squats, 5 slow push-ups. Rest 60 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
Session B
- Single-leg glute bridge · 3 × 8–15 reps (paired 1)
- Towel door row · 3 × 8–12 reps (paired 1)
- Pike push-up · 3 × 6–12 reps (paired 2)
- Reverse lunge · 2 × 8–12 reps (paired 2)
- Plank · 2 × 30–60 seconds
Warm-up first: 3 minutes: march on the spot, arm circles, hip circles, 10 squats, 5 slow push-ups. Rest 60 s between sets; paired moves alternate and share the rest.
Want BANKED to run this for you?
Same programme, weights that move up on their own, and a Today screen that says “week banked” when it is. Your kit and experience carry over.
What is the minimum effective week?
The smallest amount of training that still moves you forward, repeated on a schedule you can keep. For strength, that is two full-body sessions a week, each covering a squat, a hinge, a push, a pull and some core work, with weights or difficulty going up when the current level gets easy.
It is a floor, not a ceiling. Nothing stops you doing more. The point is that the floor is where progress lives: two sessions every week for a year beats five sessions a week for three weeks and then nothing, and most busy people have lived the second version.
How the planner decides
- Days. It picks the two ticked days furthest apart, so you recover between them. Any spare ticked days become the backup if a session slips.
- Duration. 20 minutes trains the essentials at two sets with short rests. 30 adds a third set and the secondary movements. 45 adds mobility work and is the whole programme. There is no 90-minute version because there does not need to be.
- Location and kit. Travel assumes an empty room. A gym is assumed to have dumbbells, a bench and a bar. At home, only what you tick is used; nothing ticked is a valid answer with its own bodyweight ladder.
- Experience. Sets the starting rung of each ladder and the starting dumbbell weights. In the app, progression takes over from there.
- Constrained week. Drops both sessions to 20 minutes and says plainly what still counts, because a week with two short sessions is a banked week and a week with one heroic session is not.
The planner mirrors the rules in BANKED's engine: the same A/B templates, the same set counts per duration, the same exercise ladders and starting loads. It is an illustration, so minutes and weights are shown as approximate. The app runs the real thing and remembers where you got to.
What it is not
- Not a programme for a sport or a powerlifting meet. If you have a competition date, you need more than a floor.
- Not medical advice. If you are pregnant, injured, have a condition or have not trained in years, talk to a doctor first and start at the gentlest rung.
- Not a promise about how fast anything happens. Two sessions a week produces slower progress than four. It also keeps happening, which is the part most plans get wrong.
Let BANKED run the week for you.
The same two sessions, weights that move up when they should, and a Today screen that tells you when the week is banked. Free, no streaks.