Monday to Friday Workout Plan: Your Expert Guide

Exercise Instructions

Goblet Squats

1. Stance: Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, your toes pointed slightly out.
2. Grip: Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell vertically against your chest, cupping the top end with both hands.
3. Descent: Initiate the movement by pushing your hips back and bending your knees simultaneously. Keep your chest up and your elbows pointing down.
4. Depth: Lower yourself until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor, ensuring your heels stay planted.
5. Ascent: Drive through your feet to return to the starting position, squeezing your glutes at the top.

Romanian Deadlifts (RDL)

1. Setup: Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand or a barbell in front of your thighs, your palms facing your body.
2. Hinge: Keep a slight bend in your knees (don’t squat). Push your hips backward as if trying to close a door with your glutes.
3. Lowering: Lower the weights along the front of your legs. Go only as far as your hamstring flexibility allows without rounding your back (usually mid-shin).
4. Return: Drive your hips forward to return to standing. Focus on the hamstrings and glutes, not the lower back.

Walking Lunges

1. Step: Take a long step forward with one leg.
2. Drop: Lower your hips until both knees are bent at approximately a 90-degree angle. The back knee should hover just above the ground.
3. Drive: Push off the front foot to bring the back foot forward into the next step.
4. Posture: Keep your torso upright and your core engaged throughout the movement.

Dumbbell Bench Press

1. Position: Lie on a flat bench with your feet flat on the floor. Hold a dumbbell in each hand at chest level.
2. Press: Push the dumbbells up towards the ceiling until your arms are fully extended.
3. Path: Lower the weights slowly and with control until your upper arms are parallel to the floor or slightly deeper.
4. Angle: Keep your elbows at roughly a 45-degree angle to your torso, not flared out to 90 degrees.

Single-Arm Dumbbell Row

1. Support: Place your left knee and left hand on a bench for support. Your back should be flat and parallel to the ground.
2. Grip: Hold a dumbbell in your right hand, your arm hanging straight down.
3. Pull: Pull the dumbbell up toward your hip, driving your elbow back and close to your body.
4. Release: Lower the dumbbell slowly to the starting position, feeling a stretch in the lat muscle.

Overhead Dumbbell Press

1. Stance: Stand or sit with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hold dumbbells at shoulder height, your palms facing forward or neutral.
2. Press: Drive the weights straight up overhead until arms are extended. Avoid arching your lower back excessively.
3. Lower: Lower the weights back to shoulder height with control.

Dead Bugs

1. Start: Lie on your back with your arms extended toward the ceiling and legs in a tabletop position (knees bent at 90 degrees).
2. Movement: Lower your right arm behind your head and extend your left leg straight out simultaneously. Keep your lower back pressed firmly into the floor.
3. Return: Return to the starting position and repeat with the opposite arm and leg.
4. Control: Move slowly – this is an anti-extension core exercise.

Kettlebell Swings

1. Hinge: Start with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart, kettlebell on the floor in front of you. Hinge at the hips to grab the handle.
2. Hike: Hike the bell back between your legs like a football snap.
3. Snap: Explosively drive your hips forward to propel the bell up to chest height. Your arms act as ropes; the power comes from the hips.
4. Reset: Let gravity bring the bell back down, guiding it between your legs into the next hinge.

This balanced approach ensures you’re hitting the necessary movements without overtraining. For women who are specifically looking for tailored splits that emphasize different volume loads, you can review our 5-day workout split for women.

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Does It Matter Which Days I Work Out?

Physiologically, your muscles don’t know that it’s Monday. They only understand stimulus and recovery time, which are key determinants of changes that occur in response to exercise (8). However, the sequence of your training days matters significantly for performance.

If you perform a heavy leg workout on Monday, your central nervous system (CNS) and localized musculature will experience fatigue. If you try to sprint on Tuesday, your performance will likely be inhibited as sprinting requires significant leg strength and CNS output. This is why the program above places an upper-body day between the heavy lower-body day and the cardio day.

Read more: How to Build a Gym Workout Routine for Women

The “Weekend Warrior” vs. Consistent Training

Research comparing “weekend warriors” (who compress volume into 1-2 days) vs. regular exercisers (spread over 3+ days) shows that while both groups see health benefits (9), the injury risk can be higher when volume is compressed due to acute fatigue (10). Spreading the load over a Monday to Friday schedule allows for better quality of movement.

Furthermore, adhering to a schedule that matches your lifestyle stress is essential. If Mondays are your most stressful day at work, scheduling your hardest workout then may be counterproductive due to already elevated cortisol levels. In that case, shifting your “heavy” day to Tuesday may yield better results.

Those who are interested in exploring different scheduling configurations, such as an upper/lower split spread over five days, can read more about the 5-day workout split.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What should I eat before a morning workout?

If you’re training within 30-60 minutes of waking, consume a small, easily digestible carbohydrate source such as a banana or a slice of toast to top off liver glycogen. However, if the workout is low-intensity, training while fasted is also acceptable.

• Does cardio count as a rest day?

Low-intensity cardio (Zone 2) can be considered “active recovery” as it enhances aerobic capacity by promoting blood flow without significant muscle damage (11), but high-intensity cardio places stress on the body and should be counted as a training stimulus (12), not rest.

• Can I work out 7 days a week?

While you can be physically active 7 days a week, performing intense resistance or interval training every single day is generally not recommended as it prevents adequate recovery and can lead to diminished returns and injury (13).

• How do I tell if I’m overtraining?

Common signs of overtraining include a persistent elevated resting heart rate, inability to sleep despite fatigue, a sudden drop in workout performance, and a lack of motivation or low mood that persists for more than a few days (14).

• What days should I not work out?

You shouldn’t work out on days when you’re experiencing acute pain (not to be confused with muscle soreness), illness like a fever, or when your life stress is so high that adding physical stress would be detrimental to your overall health.

The Bottom Line

Creating a Monday to Friday workout plan is about more than just filling a calendar – it’s about engineering a lifestyle that prioritizes longevity and performance. By structuring your week with intention – balancing strength, endurance, and recovery – you move away from sporadic exercise and toward a sustainable, high-performance routine. 

Start with the plan outlined above, adjust the loads to your current capability, and trust the process of consistent effort.