About this workout
Let me say the unglamorous part first. Your diet is what takes the fat off. This program does not. What this program does is keep the muscle you already have on your frame while you eat in a deficit, so that eight weeks from now you are smaller and harder instead of smaller and softer. That is the whole job of lifting during a fat loss phase, and it is a big job. You get four full body days a week, a short conditioning finisher at the end of each one, and an optional fifth day on the cardio deck. All of it runs on machines, cables, dumbbells and the Smith machine, so a Planet Fitness membership covers every movement here.
Who This Program Is For
- Beginners with a Planet Fitness membership who want to lose fat without guessing what to do on the floor
- Men and women who have four days a week and 45 to 60 minutes per session to give this
- Anyone who has been doing cardio only and keeps losing weight without looking any different
- Lifters coming back after months off who need a simple structure and a starting point that is not brutal
Who this is NOT for: This is not for anyone expecting the training alone to do it. If your eating is not in a deficit, you will finish eight weeks stronger and the same size, and you will blame the program. It is also not for advanced lifters chasing a stage or a peak week; you need more volume per muscle and more control over your cardio than this gives you. And if you only have two days a week, run a two day full body plan honestly instead of running this one badly.
What You'll Need
- A Planet Fitness or similar gym with cable stations, selectorized machines, a Smith machine and dumbbells
- A treadmill, rower, bike or elliptical for the finishers and the optional conditioning day
- A way to track food and a way to log your lifts. If you are not tracking either one, you are guessing at both
The Program
Four lifting days, each one full body, each one ending with a short conditioning piece. Full body is the right call in a deficit because every muscle gets trained four times a week, and frequent training is what signals your body to hold onto tissue when calories are low. Run it Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, or any four days with at least one rest day in the middle. Day 5 is optional conditioning; add it if you have the time and the recovery, skip it if you do not. Keep rest periods honest and keep the weights heavy enough to matter. Reps go up in this program because you are getting leaner, not because light weight burns more fat. It does not.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Body A | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Squat | 3 | 8-10, control the way down | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 | 10-12, pull to the collarbone | 75 sec |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 12-15, 2 second lowering | 60 sec |
| Plank | 3 | 40 to 60 second hold | 45 sec |
| Incline Walking | 1 | 12 minutes at 8 to 10 percent incline (RPE 6) | None |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Body B | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Leg Press | 3 | 10-12, full range, no bouncing | 90 sec |
| Seated Cable Rows | 3 | 10-12, no body english | 90 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 10-12 | 75 sec |
| Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift | 3 | 10-12, feel the hamstrings stretch | 75 sec |
| Cable Lateral Raise | 3 | 15-20, light, no swinging | 45 sec |
| Cable Crunch | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Rowing | 1 | 10 minutes steady (RPE 6) | None |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Body C | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Goblet Squat | 3 | 12-15, sit straight down | 75 sec |
| Smith Machine Bench Press | 3 | 8-10 | 90 sec |
| Close Grip Pulldown | 3 | 10-12 | 75 sec |
| Dumbbell Walking Lunges | 3 | 10-12 per leg | 75 sec |
| Tricep Pushdown | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Dumbbell Curls | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Mountain Climbers | 3 | 30 seconds (RPE 7) | 30 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Body D | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Hack Squat | 3 | 10-12 | 90 sec |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 3 | 10-12 per arm | 75 sec |
| Pec Dec Butterfly | 3 | 12-15, squeeze one second at the top | 60 sec |
| Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 10-12 | 60 sec |
| Cable Pull Through | 3 | 12-15, drive with the glutes | 60 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 | 15-20, full stretch at the bottom | 45 sec |
| Incline Walking | 1 | 15 minutes at 10 percent incline (RPE 6) | None |
| Day 5 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Optional Conditioning | |||
| Movement | Rounds | Work | Recovery |
| Incline Walking | 1 | 10 min at 4 to 5 percent incline as a warm up (RPE 4) | None |
| Rowing | 5 | 500 meters hard (RPE 8) | 90 sec easy |
| Jump Rope | 4 | 60 seconds (RPE 7) | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Farmers Walk | 3 | 40 yards, heavy but not grip failure | 60 sec |
| Incline Walking | 1 | 15 min at 10 to 12 percent incline (RPE 6) | None |
| Incline Walking | 1 | 5 min flat and easy to bring the heart rate down (RPE 3) | None |
How to Progress
Eight weeks. The lifting numbers should hold or climb while the scale comes down, and that is the whole scoreboard.
Weeks 1 and 2 Set your baseline. Pick weights that leave you one or two reps short of failure at the top of the listed range, then write every number down. Do the finishers at the easy end of the RPE. Do not add extra cardio yet and do not cut calories hard yet; get your deficit set and get four sessions in the books two weeks running. Most people blow this program up in week 1 by doing too much of everything at once.
Weeks 3 and 4 Now you add load. Beat week 2 by a rep or a small jump in weight on the first three exercises of every day. Dumbbell jumps at Planet Fitness are big, so when the next pair is too heavy, stay put and add reps instead. Push the finishers to the stated RPE. If your lifting numbers are going backward two weeks in a row, your deficit is too aggressive, not your program.
Weeks 5 and 6 Volume goes up where it counts. Add a fourth set to the first two exercises of each day and hold everything else the same. Take the last set of each exercise close enough to failure that you are honestly unsure about another rep. Add the optional Day 5 here if your sleep and joints are handling four days cleanly. If they are not, keep four days and get more walking in instead.
Weeks 7 and 8 Hold the line. This is the stretch where calories have been low for a while and it stops being fun. Do not add more volume; keep the week 6 numbers and fight to match them. Cut the finishers to the low end of the RPE if you need to. After week 8, spend two weeks eating at maintenance with the same training before you decide whether to run another block or move to a muscle building plan.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Five to eight minutes on a treadmill, bike or rower to get your temperature up, then one or two light feeler sets on the first movement of the day. That is it. Once the first exercise is done you are warm; the rest of the session only needs a single light set before anything heavy. On squat and leg press days give the first movement an extra ramp set, and on pressing days do a set of Cable Lateral Raise or Face Pulls before you press to get the shoulders moving.
You are in a deficit, so you recover slower than usual and you need to respect that. Seven to nine hours of sleep is not optional here; it is the difference between holding your strength and watching it slide. Take at least two full rest days a week, and let those be walking days, not sit on the couch days. Expect to feel flat some sessions. That is what low calories feel like, and it is not a reason to change the program. If a joint hurts rather than burns, swap the movement for another one in the same pattern and keep going.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Here is the honest version. Fat loss comes from eating fewer calories than you burn, and no amount of training fixes a diet that is not in a deficit. Start about 400 to 500 calories under your maintenance and aim to lose 0.5 to 1 percent of your bodyweight per week. That is slow on purpose. Crash dieting on 1,000 calories works for about three weeks and then costs you muscle, strength and every bit of the progress you came for. Get 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight every day; protein is what keeps the tissue on you when calories are low, and it keeps you full. Eat foods you actually like inside those numbers. Then walk. Get 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day outside of your training, because daily walking adds more to your weekly calorie burn than any single cardio session will, and it does not cut into your recovery. Weigh yourself three or four mornings a week and judge the weekly average, not any one number.
Simple support: a protein powder so hitting your daily protein target is not a fight when your calories are tight, and a multivitamin to cover the gaps that show up when you are eating less food. You do not need a fat burner. They are the smallest lever in the room and they will not outwork a diet you are not following.
FAQ
Is the 30 minute express circuit enough for fat loss? It is better than nothing and it is a fine place to start if you are brand new or short on time. But it is not enough to hold your muscle in a deficit, because the loads are fixed and light and you cannot progress them. Use the express circuit on a day you would otherwise skip the gym entirely, or as extra conditioning on top of this plan. Do not use it as the plan.
Should I do cardio before or after lifting? After. If you do 20 minutes of hard cardio first, you will lift less weight, and lifting less weight is exactly how you lose muscle in a deficit. Lift first while you are fresh, then do the finisher. If you want a longer cardio session, put it on a separate day or several hours away from your lifting. Easy incline walking beforehand as a warm up is fine; that is not the cardio I am talking about.
How much weight can I realistically lose in eight weeks? Somewhere between 8 and 16 pounds for most people, and the first week will look bigger than that because of water. If you are heavier you will lose faster early on; if you are already fairly lean it will be slower and you will care more about how you look than what the scale says. Losing more than about 1 percent of your bodyweight a week over eight weeks usually means you are giving away muscle to get there.
Questions and results
Ask a coach
Running this program? Tell us what week you are on and how the progression is going. A coach answers every question here.