The Real Minimum Effective Dose for Strength Training (And Why Two Days a Week Might Be Enough)

The fitness debate on Instagram continues—more does not equal better for women in mid-life, vs. yes you can do more, including more days in the gym, more sets, more sweat, more soreness the next day. So when strength and nutrition coach Steph Gaudreau told me on this week's episode of the Fuel with Erin podcast that she personally lifts just twice a week — after sixteen years of training and over a decade of coaching other women — it landed like permission nobody knew they needed.

"I lift two times a week, which shocks people," Steph said. And it's not because she's coasting. It's because she's built her entire coaching philosophy around a question most of us never stop to ask: what is actually enough? It's worth asking, too, because a lot of the content telling you otherwise is built to sell you something — a six-week program, a new app, a "shred" challenge — and none of those businesses profit from telling you that two well-executed sessions a week might already be doing the job.

Start With the Minimums, Not the Maximums

Steph's starting point isn't ambition — it's the actual public health guidelines for muscle-strengthening exercise, the kind published by health organizations "in the US, but these are very common amongst many nations around the world, including the WHO." The guideline: two sessions a week hitting your main muscle groups. That's the floor, not a beginner's warm-up phase to graduate out of as fast as possible.

"If we're not meeting the minimums yet, that is our first goal — to work to the minimums, not to start from zero and go, how much is the most I can do?" she explained. "Because that's unlikely, in terms of behavior change, to be a smooth transition."

This matters more for women than the data might suggest at first glance. Steph pointed out that women are already falling behind men on hitting these guidelines, and the gap doesn't close with age — it widens. "As we age, fewer adults are meeting the minimums. It doesn't improve with age," she said. Between more caregiving responsibilities, unpaid household labor, and simply less free time, women are quietly being squeezed out of the one category of exercise — strength training — that does the most to protect them as they get older.

Why Shooting Big Usually Backfires

I personally started a lifting program at the beginning of 2026, and like most type A women, went all in. I was lifting five days a week, which was a lot out of the gate, and made it hard to sprinkle in long trail runs that I used to enjoy. Today I’ve scaled back to three days / week, which feels right. This was validated by Steph who has told clients, "Show me you can do two days really consistently for now, and then we'll inch up."

"Knowing the type of people that we are, that actually can backfire," she said, "because we start to feel like I'm failing, I'm falling behind, I suck at this — and it doesn't become a motivating thing, it becomes a demotivating thing."

This is where Steph's "athlete brain" framing — a term she credits to her friend and fellow coach Brianna Battles — comes in. Many women who were competitive athletes growing up (like me), or who simply have a driven personality, default to an all-or-nothing standard: either the workout is perfect and complete, or it doesn't count. That mindset served them in a specific season of life. In the middle of raising kids, managing a career, and running a household, it mostly just generates guilt.

Make Your Two Days Count: Compound Movements First

Once the frequency question is settled, the next lever is what you actually do in those two sessions. Steph's answer is unglamorous but effective: prioritize compound, multi-joint movements — "squats, lunges, hinges, which are things like deadlifts, hip thrusts, push-ups, bench presses, lat pull-downs, pull-up variations, rows." These work the most muscle at once, which is exactly why they're the highest-leverage use of limited time. "It works the most muscle at the same time because we're moving multiple joints," she said. "So we are going to be much more efficient."

I personally do a lot of these exercises and have found that not only do I get the lower and upper body strength in, but the compound movements works my core. I rarely do “ab” or core workouts, but my core has improved substantially from compound movements.

She specifically warned against a popular trend of chaining exercises together for the sake of efficiency — a reverse lunge into an overhead press, or a squat into a row using the same light dumbbell. The problem is that your legs are dramatically stronger than your arms, so the weight gets picked based on the smaller muscle group, and your legs end up doing a fraction of the work they're capable of. "We're underloading the legs," she said — a sneaky way that two "productive-looking" sessions a week can quietly become far less effective than they appear.

The Exception That Proves the Rule

None of this means six-day training splits are wrong. Steph was clear that people training that frequently usually have a very specific goal — competing in a bodybuilding show, for instance — and, critically, they're not layering that volume on top of a full life of other athletic pursuits and responsibilities. "They're not also going to be doing a lot of the other things," she said, pointing out that a serious bodybuilding competitor isn't also running three times a week or training jiu-jitsu on the side.

The takeaway isn't that more days are wrong for everyone — it's that more days are the right call for a narrow set of specific goals, not the default starting point for a busy woman trying to build strength around an already full life.

What "Enough" Actually Looks Like

If two sessions a week is genuinely working — meaning you're consistent, seeing progress, and not white-knuckling your way through it — that's success, not a plateau to escape. Steph's advice for anyone wondering whether they should add a third or fourth day: only once the first two are locked in. "If you can do that and you're thinking, wow, okay, that's going pretty well, and I am interested in adding a third day — cool. But I'm at least hitting those minimums."

The takeaway isn't that more days are wrong. Some of Steph's clients, and Steph herself in certain seasons, train more. The point is that more isn't the prerequisite for real results, and treating it as one is often exactly what causes people to quit altogether. "We don't need to do the most," Steph said. "We need to do enough to be effective."

Hear the full conversation with Steph Gaudreau — including her take on "junk volume," why combo exercises quietly shortchange your legs, and why it's never too late to start — on the Fuel with Erin podcast. Find Steph at @steph_gaudreau on Instagram.