This was me 5 years ago:

I wanted to get in shape. Why don’t I get a six-pack and look great? So, I did what a lot of people do. I did cardio. I did ab training. I did every calisthenics and gym exercise in existence. I put in hours of work every week to get through my laundry list of different exercises. And it got me sweaty, burnt out, and frustrated. But at the same time, it got me nowhere closer to my dream physique.

To contrast, this is me now:

For the past 4 years, I’ve used the same set of six exercises. I’ve worked out for less than 40 minutes a week, and I’ve done no other training. This is what that has done to my body.

The one exercise you actually need to get in great shape

Here’s the thing: most exercise does not work for the purpose of getting in great shape, for building a body that we’re proud of aesthetically and functionally. We’ve been lied to again and again about what will get us our dream body. I think the fact is that what actually works is so minimal and simple, it’s harder to sell and it’s harder to make ongoing money from. But it works. And that is why I’ve dedicated myself to teaching it, so that you can have the same results as me without all the waste of time and effort and frustration.

I want to show you now why exercise has been massively confused and why if you’re clear on precisely what you’re trying to do, six exercises and 40 minutes a week is more than you need to completely transform your physique, build total body strength and mobility to elite levels, jump out of bed every morning feeling pain-free and incredible, and have a six-pack for the rest of your life.

The only goal of exercise: muscle

The first thing to understand is that in terms of physical visible change in your body, the only thing that training exercise can do is trigger muscle growth. That’s it. If you want to be lean and look great, you need more muscle mass so that when you lean, you’re not just skinny. And in order to actually lose fat and get lean, you need a way of telling your body to hold on to muscle mass so that you lose fat and get leaner, rather than just losing weight and getting smaller. It’s a very important difference, and this applies regardless of whether you’re a guy or a girl. You want shape, tone, definition—the process is exactly the same. For a tight butt or a six-pack: more muscle, less fat. They are the only two variables that affect how you look. Muscle is triggered by training and fat by diet. All comes down to energy balance. Don’t confuse the two.

muscle = strength

Okay, so if the goal of training is to trigger muscle growth, how do we make sure that happens? The second thing to realise is that muscle mass is purely a reflection of your capacity to produce force. i.e., If you want to build muscle, you need to get stronger. The dichotomy between hypertrophy (muscle growth) training and strength training—it’s just not existent in the long run. The difference just doesn’t exist. Muscle mass is purely an external sign of how strong you are. It’s a byproduct of function. There’s simply no possible way you can bench press 120kg without a slab of muscle on your chest and shoulders to actually generate the force necessary to move the weight. It’s basic biomechanics. If you increase your strength, you gain muscle. That’s the equation. It’s that simple.

So considering this, we just want a handful of lofty strength goals to aim for that we know will demand a certain level of muscle mass in order to do them. That will leave us with a killer physique no matter what. And then, training suddenly becomes very simple.

The six planes of strength

So what strength goals should we aim for? If you boil it down, there are basically only six planes of motion that you can get stronger in: horizontal pushing and pulling, vertical pushing and pulling, squatting, and then the opposite of squatting. So for that, we can just do knee flexion. (There’s also hip and ankle flexion, but I’m going to keep things simple and ignore that for now.) If you increase your strength across full range of motion in all of these movement patterns, you gain all the muscle possible in proportion and in functional unison.

So, I just have one really difficult and roughly equivalent strength goal for each of those planes of motion:

Horizontal pushing: straddle planche push-up
Horizontal pulling: front lever row
Vertical pushing: handstand push-up
Vertical pulling: one-arm chin-up
Squatting: single-leg squat loaded with 75% bodyweight
Knee flexion: nordic curl

Bottom line: The one purpose of your exercise

In terms of the training you actually do, all you need is some sort of training that will take you to your strength goals. And if it gets you there eventually, then everything is covered.

What I realized about four or 5 years ago was that all my training needed to do was get me to those strength goals eventually, and I’d be good. I don’t need anything else from my training because those goals guarantee everything that I want. I’m better off cutting back on everything else, doubling down on these, and simply making sure I’m progressing consistently towards them.

Caveat: Incidental exercise

Now, a small caveat: this isn’t the only exercise I do in my life. I walk every day as essential for my mental health and creativity. I play sporadic social sport because it’s fun. And then there’s all the other incidental cardio that you get in your daily life, right? But these are all things I do purely because I enjoy them, they make me feel good, they have nothing to do with my physique, and they are not essentials. They’re not part of my core routine.

Summary – The only exercise you need to get in great shape

And that, in a nutshell, is how I’ve done it. These are the only six movement patterns I train. I train each of them once a week for a few minutes each—less than 40 minutes total training a week. And I just ensure that I’m constantly creeping one step closer towards those end goals. The closer I’ve gotten, the more muscle mass I’ve gained, the leaner I’ve looked, and to me, the more ridiculous my overall physique has become.

If you want to get in awesome shape, stop the frantic exercise. Stop punishing yourself every morning or evening with workouts that you don’t enjoy in the hopes that it will somehow magically make you look better.

Instead:

Get clear that your goal is to build muscle
Set a few heavy strength targets that will guarantee that muscle by the time you reach them
Start training with intent on progressing towards those targets as fast as possible

The sooner you reach them, the sooner exercise will cease to be something you worry about or ever feel the need to make yourself do. And that is a liberating feeling. You get to that point, everything you ever wanted from exercise will be yours. And you’ll never be seen doing another ab exercise or sweating it out on a stationary bike again in your life… unless you really want to.