About this workout
You joined Planet Fitness, you paid the ten dollars, and now you are standing in a room full of machines wondering which ones matter. This plan answers that. Four days a week, ten weeks, built entirely from equipment your club actually has. Machines, dumbbells, cables and the Smith machine. No barbell, no squat rack, none of the stuff the internet says you need. Let me handle the big one first. Lifting weights will not make you bulky. Building a visible amount of muscle takes years of hard training and deliberate eating, and it does not happen by accident on four sessions a week. What you are calling toning is just two things: building muscle and losing fat. That is the whole recipe. So we are going to build muscle, and I am going to tell you honestly that your food decides how much of it you can see. The glute work in here is real progressive loading. Hip thrusts, Romanian deadlifts, squats, leg press, and yes, cable kickbacks, but as accessory work at the end and not as the whole program. Endless band kickbacks are not going to change your shape. Adding weight to a hip thrust over ten weeks will. Upper body gets equal attention. Two of the four days are built around pressing and pulling, because shoulders and back are what give a physique its shape.
Who This Program Is For
- Women who just joined Planet Fitness and want a plan that uses only the equipment in front of them.
- Beginners who want to build shape in the glutes, legs, shoulders and back rather than just lose weight.
- Anyone who has been doing cardio for months and is ready to add resistance training four days a week.
- Lifters who need a structured, written program instead of picking machines at random.
Who this is NOT for: This is not for someone who wants a quick fix in three weeks. Ten weeks is the minimum honest timeline for a visible change in muscle shape, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It is also not for an experienced lifter who already squats and deadlifts with a barbell; you will find the loading here limiting, and you should train somewhere with a rack. And if you are not willing to log your weights and add to them over time, this program will not work, because progressive overload is the entire mechanism.
What You'll Need
- A Planet Fitness membership or any gym with a Smith machine, leg press, lat pulldown and cable station.
- Dumbbells and an adjustable bench, flat and incline.
- 45 to 60 minutes, four days a week, and a notebook or app to log every set.
The Program
Four training days: two lower body emphasis, two upper body emphasis. Lower A is your heavy glute day. Upper A is press focused. Lower B leans into hamstrings and quads with more volume. Upper B is pull focused. Every muscle gets trained twice a week, which is the frequency that works best for a beginner. Run them Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. What matters is that you do not stack all four days back to back and that you finish all four in a week. Ramp up sets do not count toward the sets listed. Before your first working set on Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension), Smith Machine Squat, Smith Machine Bench Press and Smith Machine Stiff Leg Deadlift, do two light sets to find the groove and get warm. Where a movement is listed per leg or per arm, do the listed reps on each side. Pick a weight that has you working hard on the last two reps of the range. If you finish a set and could have done five more, the weight is too light and you are wasting the set.
| Day 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower A (Glute Focus) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension) | 4 | 8-10, pause one second at the top | 2 min |
| Smith Machine Squat | 4 | 8-10, feet set slightly forward | 2 min |
| Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift | 3 | 10-12, push the hips back, soft knees | 90 sec |
| Wide Stance Leg Press | 3 | 12-15, feet high and wide on the platform | 90 sec |
| Lying Leg Curl | 3 | 12-15, two second lowering | 60 sec |
| Cable Kickbacks (One Legged Kickback) | 3 | 12-15 per leg, no swinging | 45 sec |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 | 12-15, full stretch at the bottom | 45 sec |
| Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper A (Press Focus) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Bench Press | 4 | 8-10, touch the chest every rep | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 4 | 8-10, seated with back support | 90 sec |
| Lat Pulldown | 3 | 10-12, pull to the collarbone | 90 sec |
| Seated Cable Rows | 3 | 10-12, no rocking | 75 sec |
| Dumbbell Lateral Raise | 4 | 12-15, light weight, lead with the elbows | 45 sec |
| Tricep Pushdown | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Dumbbell Curls | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Day 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower B (Hamstring and Quad) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Smith Machine Stiff Leg Deadlift | 4 | 8-10, feel the stretch, do not round the back | 2 min |
| Leg Press | 4 | 12-15, controlled, no bouncing off the stops | 90 sec |
| Dumbbell Bulgarian Squat | 3 | 10-12 per leg | 90 sec |
| Cable Pull Through | 3 | 12-15, squeeze the glutes hard at lockout | 60 sec |
| Leg Extension | 3 | 15-20, pause one second at the top | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Walking Lunges | 3 | 20 steps total, light dumbbells | 75 sec |
| Seated Calf Raise | 3 | 15-20 | 45 sec |
| Day 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper B (Pull Focus) | |||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
| Close Grip Pulldown | 4 | 10-12, full stretch at the top | 90 sec |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 3 | 10-12 per arm, brace on the bench | 75 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 10-12 | 75 sec |
| Face Pulls | 3 | 15-20, pull toward the forehead | 45 sec |
| Cable Hammer Curl | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Cable Rope Overhead Tricep Extensions | 3 | 12-15 | 45 sec |
| Plank | 3 | 30 to 60 second hold | 45 sec |
How to Progress
Ten weeks with one deload. The only thing that makes this program work is adding weight over time. Log every set so you are competing with last week instead of guessing.
Weeks 1 to 3. Learn the movements and set your baseline. Stop every working set two reps short of failure. That will feel easy, and it should. You are teaching your body the patterns and giving yourself room to add weight for three weeks straight instead of stalling on day four. Write down the load and the reps for every single set.
Weeks 4 to 6. Add weight anywhere you hit the top of the rep range on all sets. Small jumps: 5 pounds on upper body movements, 10 on lower body. Your last set on Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension) and Smith Machine Squat should now finish with one rep left in the tank. Everything else stays two reps short.
Week 7. Deload. Same four days, same exercises, but cut every movement to two working sets and drop the weight about 40 percent. This is not a wasted week and it is not optional. Six weeks of adding load without a break is how beginners end up sore, flat and frustrated. You come back stronger in week 8.
Weeks 8 to 10. Push. Take the last set of the first two exercises each day close to true failure. Add one set to Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension) on Lower A and one set to Close Grip Pulldown on Upper B if you are recovering well. Week 10 is your best week. Log your top loads and use them as the starting point for whatever you run next.
Warm-Up and Recovery Notes
Five to eight minutes on a bike, treadmill or elliptical to get your body temperature up, then two light ramp up sets on the first movement of the day. On Lower A that means working up to your hip thrust weight. On Upper A that means working up to your bench press weight. Those sets are light and easy; they do not count as working sets. Skip the long static stretching before you lift. It does nothing for you at that point and can leave you feeling loose in a bad way. Get warm, run the pattern light, then train. Save the stretching for after.
Four training days leaves three days off. Those days are when the muscle is actually built. Training is the signal; recovery is when your body responds to it. Sleep is the highest leverage recovery tool you have and it is free. Seven to nine hours does more than any supplement on the shelf. If you are sleeping five hours a night, fix that before you worry about anything else in this article. Walk on your off days. Twenty to thirty minutes of easy walking, or Incline Walking on a treadmill, helps you recover and adds to your daily activity without taking away from your lifting. Keep hard cardio away from Lower A and Lower B by at least a day. Soreness in the first two weeks is normal, especially in the glutes and hamstrings. Joint pain is not. If your knee or shoulder hurts inside the joint rather than in the muscle, swap that movement for one that does not hurt and keep training.
Nutrition and Supplementation
Training builds the muscle. Food decides whether you have the energy to train hard and the material to build with. Start with protein. Aim for roughly 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight per day, spread across your meals. For most women that lands somewhere between 100 and 150 grams. Chicken, eggs, Greek yogurt, fish, lean beef, cottage cheese, beans, a protein shake when real food is not convenient. Build every meal around a protein source and the rest gets easier. Eat enough. This is the part most women get wrong when they start lifting. Undereating on a program like this leaves you flat, weak in the gym and unable to add weight to the bar, which is the exact thing that makes the program work. Carbs are not the enemy; they are what fuels these sessions. Rice, potatoes, oats, fruit, bread. Fat is not the enemy either. Eat vegetables because they make you feel better and keep digestion normal. If your goal is fat loss alongside this, eat slightly below maintenance and keep protein high, and be patient about it. No food needs to be earned and no food is off limits. Consistency across ten weeks beats a perfect week followed by three bad ones. Drink water and stop weighing yourself every morning.
Supplements are the small stuff and they come after training and food. If you want the short list with real support behind it: a protein powder to make hitting your daily protein easier, creatine monohydrate at 5 grams a day, and a multivitamin. Creatine works the same in women as it does in men and it will not make you bulky or hold water in your face. That is the list.
FAQ
Will lifting weights make me bulky? No. Building a large amount of visible muscle takes years of hard, heavy, deliberate training combined with eating in a surplus on purpose. It is difficult even for people chasing it full time. What lifting four days a week for ten weeks will do is add a modest amount of muscle to your glutes, legs, shoulders and back, which is exactly what creates the shape most women say they want. If you ever decide you have more muscle than you want, you can stop adding weight. That is a problem you will have plenty of warning about.
Can I actually grow my glutes without a barbell hip thrust? Yes. The glutes respond to tension and progressive overload, and they do not know whether that load came from a barbell, a Smith machine, dumbbells or a cable stack. This plan hits them from every angle: heavy hip extension with the Hip Thrust (Weighted Hip Extension), squatting with the Smith Machine Squat, hip hinging with Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift and Cable Pull Through, and direct work with Cable Kickbacks (One Legged Kickback). What matters is that the weight goes up over ten weeks. Set a dumbbell across your hips for thrusts and add to it every time you hit the top of the rep range.
How long until I see a change? You will feel a change in about three weeks: better energy, better control, lifts moving up. You will see a change in the mirror somewhere around weeks six to eight, and other people will notice it around week ten to twelve. That timeline is honest and it is faster than most beginners expect once they train with real intent. Progress photos in the same lighting every two weeks tell you far more than the scale does, because muscle gain and fat loss can happen together and leave your bodyweight sitting still.
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.