That’s 2026 for me measured in lower body workouts. Averaging around three leg days per week and a couple of weeks off.

Depending on your perspective it could seem like a lot.

That would have seemed a daunting task to me also until I was struck by the message in Oliver Burkeman’s latest book 4,000 Weeks: that our time here on earth is shorter than we think.

Once I embraced his idea of ‘radical finitude’, that our allowed time is so much shorter than we imagine and also not guaranteed, I realised that there are not actually infinite leg days in my personal future.  The leg strength will not develop itself and if I am lucky I will have 150 chances this year to improve.

And particularly if I think about how many leg days I have already done (maybe around 1,000) and how long it has taken for me to build what strength I do have (that same 1,000) it means that I may need to actually use my future training opportunities better than I did before, in addition to just turning up I might also have to try a bit harder.

Because, it is definitely possible to half-arse a leg workout:

• let oneself off the tricky stuff
• go a bit light
• rush it
• half-rep it
• do fewer reps
• do worse reps
• and the one which I often do, which is not to be fully focussed or mentally present whilst doing it.

In fact I am a past master in the different ways to slightly waste leg days. But my new perception of time being limited means I have gone from dreading hard leg sets to now thinking ‘how can I really pay attention in every workout rather than just get it done’.

It’s the beginning of the year and the temptation to set ambitious goals is strong. I have come a cropper with ambitious goal setting before, creating a bunch of stress for myself in the process and killing my enjoyment. So rather than make performance goals about setting new squat maxes, specific lifts or weights or even competing, in 2026 I am taking a different approach:

• I think this is what’s known as ‘trusting the process’ in that I am just trying my best with every set and every exercise
• I intend to be fully engaged, involved and focussed. In fact ‘intentional lifting’ is probably the most accurate phrase
• This isn’t to be confused with just going for max weight every time, but should also in time mean that I am able to lift more, and better
• My best on any given day might be a form improvement, greater mind muscle connection, a slower, lower or heavier rep, but I am promising myself that I will be absolutely focussed – even on the accessory exercises.

And the best thing about this and being attentive to it is that when I am doing that I am undertaking something entirely for myself: not thinking about family, work or any other stuff at all.

I am completely in the moment.

So whilst it may take 1,000s more workouts (if I am lucky enough to have them) to get really strong legs, every single workout is giving me back maybe a tiny physical improvement, but also a mentally relieving flow state activity ….

This turns a difficult leg session from a hard and humbling lesson in seeming futility to an exercise in giving back to myself.

Vive Leg Days!  Bring them on!