How to get in shape: cardio, strength and a week you can repeat

"In shape" isn't one thing. It's being able to keep moving without running out of breath, and being strong enough for what your days ask of you. The guidelines treat those as two halves, cardio and strength, and so does this page. What follows is the short list, each piece in a paragraph, with the page on this site that covers it properly. If you've never trained at all, how to start lifting weights and how much cardio per week are the two first steps.

It's a page about how fitness is built, not a promise about how fit you'll get or how soon. The studies below measured groups of people; your own pace depends on where you start and things a page can't see.

1. Do cardio most days of the week

The World Health Organization's 2020 guidelines ask adults for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or an equivalent mix, and bouts of any length count toward it.¹ The American College of Sports Medicine puts it as at least 30 minutes on five days, or at least 20 vigorous minutes on three.² The WHO describes moderate effort as usually a 5 or 6 on a 0-to-10 scale, and vigorous as a 7 or 8.¹ The numbers in plain minutes, and a build-up for beginners: how much cardio per week. Finding an easy, steady pace: zone 2 cardio. Walking or running: running vs walking.

2. Lift two or more days a week

The WHO's other half is muscle-strengthening work at moderate or greater intensity for all the major muscle groups on two or more days a week.¹ Against doing no exercise, the American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 overview of 137 systematic reviews found resistance training improved strength, muscle size, power, endurance, walking speed and balance.³ Two or three full-body sessions a week covers it: the full-body workout plan in a gym, the bodyweight workout at home. If strength itself is the goal, how to get stronger.

3. Start small, then build

The WHO's advice for anyone not yet at those numbers is to start with small amounts of activity and gradually increase how often, how hard and how long.¹ On the lifting side, the 2026 ACSM stand notes that research shows "minimal doses" of resistance training bring substantial strength gains.³ So the first goal isn't the full week; it's a smaller week you finish. A printable four-week ramp: the 30-day fitness challenge. Starting over after time off: getting back into training.

4. Make some of the cardio hard

Steady cardio and hard intervals both raise aerobic fitness. A 2015 meta-analysis of 28 controlled trials in 723 healthy adults aged 18 to 45 found steady endurance training raised VO2 max, a lab measure of aerobic fitness, by about 4.9 mL/kg/min against no exercise, and interval training by about 5.5.⁴ Short sessions count: in a trial of 22 recreationally active women (7 in each training group), four weeks of 8 rounds of 20 seconds of one exercise such as burpees, with 10 seconds of rest, four days a week, raised peak oxygen uptake about 8%, close to the 7% of a group doing 30 minutes on a treadmill at about 85% of maximum heart rate, and the interval group also improved muscular endurance.⁵ Which to pick: HIIT vs steady-state cardio. Sessions to run: the HIIT workout. For the lasting-longer side in detail: how to build endurance.

5. Ask for a little more over time

A week that never changes stops asking anything new of you. The 2026 ACSM stand's conclusion is that healthy adults should do progressive resistance training.³ On the lifting days that means a rep or a little weight more when a set gets easier (progressive overload, tracked in a workout log). On the cardio days it means a few more minutes, or one more session, before it means going faster.

6. Keep a smaller week for the busy ones

Busy weeks happen, and the plan needs a version for them. A 2021 review of the least training needed to hold on to fitness found that in general populations, endurance performance could be kept for up to 15 weeks on as few as two sessions a week, or with a third to two-thirds less volume, as long as intensity stayed the same; strength and muscle size, at least in younger people, could be kept for up to 32 weeks on one strength session a week and one set per exercise, as long as the load stayed the same relative to their strength.⁶ So the short week has a floor: keep the effort, drop the volume. Days off are covered in rest days.

A sample week

A practical way to hit both halves, not a protocol from a trial. It adds up to about 150 minutes of moderate cardio, the low end of the WHO's range, and three strength days, one more than its two.¹ New to all of it? Run the first two weeks at half the minutes and two lifting days.

On a busy week, keep two cardio days and one strength day, at the same effort: that's the floor the review above describes. More ways to lay it out beside lifting: cardio and lifting.

Common questions

How do you get in shape fast, or in a month?

Nobody can promise a result by a date, and this page doesn't. What the studies measured: in the four-week trial above, peak oxygen uptake rose about 7 to 8% in both training groups;⁵ a 2019 meta-analysis of 53 trials found interval programs of four weeks or less already improved VO2 max against no training;⁷ and in 7 young volunteers on a hard leg program three times a week, an increase in thigh muscle size was measurable after 20 days.⁸ Those are group measurements on set programs, not a schedule for you. What 30 days can promise is 30 days of training; how much changes in them is yours to find out. More on timelines: how long to see results.

How do you get in shape at home?

Both halves work without a gym. The 2026 ACSM overview found home-based resistance training improved muscular endurance against no exercise,³ and the four-week trial above used bodyweight moves such as burpees and mountain climbers.⁵ Plans: the bodyweight workout, the home gym workout plan and the jump rope workout.

How do you start working out?

Small, and with both halves. The WHO's advice for anyone not yet at its numbers is to start with small amounts of activity and gradually increase how often, how hard and how long,¹ and the 2026 ACSM stand notes that "minimal doses" of resistance training bring substantial strength gains.³ So a first week can be two short full-body sessions and a few walks, with a little more each week after; that week is a practical starting point, not a study's. In a gym, how to start lifting weights covers the first four weeks; at home, the bodyweight workout; and the 30-day fitness challenge is a printable four-week ramp. Coming back after time off: getting back into training.

What about getting in shape at 40, or for a wedding?

Both have their own pages: strength training over 40 covers starting from zero later on, and the wedding workout plan is a twelve-week plan toward a date.

Cardio or weights first?

Both, in the same week; the guidelines ask for each.¹ If you can only start one, start the one you'll keep doing, and add the other within a few weeks. Cardio and lifting covers the order and spacing.

The other goals

Being in shape is the broad answer; this site has the narrower ones too. How to get stronger for lifting more, how to build endurance for lasting longer, and how to build muscle for size.

If you'd rather have the week planned

Getting in shape is easy to plan and hard to keep going. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. Coaching for beginners explains how that works if you're starting out, coaching for a week that doesn't hold still if time is the problem, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: walk 20 minutes today, and put two short strength sessions in this week's calendar.