Multi Gym Workout: Full Body and Upper/Lower Plans for a Home Multi Gym

A home multi gym puts six to ten exercises on one frame and one weight stack, and the only thing missing is a plan. Most owners do a few sets of whatever's nearest, wonder why nothing changes after three months, and end up with a very expensive clothes rack. The machine isn't the problem. Below are two programmes built around the stations most home multi gyms share (chest press, pec deck, lat pulldown, low row, leg extension, leg curl, preacher curl and triceps pushdown), plus how to pick a weight, how to progress when you run out of plates, and the mistakes that stall people.

Which plan to pick

If you've been training consistently for less than about six months, run the full body plan three days a week. The American College of Sports Medicine's position stand on resistance training recommends 2 to 3 sessions a week and 8 to 12 rep loads for novices, moving to 3 to 4 sessions for intermediates, and that's exactly the split between the two plans here.

The upper/lower plan runs four days. It suits someone who has stopped making progress on full body, has the time, and wants more sets per muscle each week.

Both clear the NHS minimum of strength work on at least 2 days a week covering the legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms. That list exposes the honest weak spot of most home multi gyms: there's no loaded squat or hip hinge. Leg extension and leg curl isolate the thighs well, but they don't train your glutes or teach you to lift something off the floor, so both plans add a split squat. A single dumbbell or kettlebell held at your chest makes it progressive.

The full body multi gym workout (3 days a week)

Alternate sessions A and B on non-consecutive days, so week one is A, B, A and week two is B, A, B. Each takes 40 to 50 minutes including the warm-up.

Session A

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest
Chest press	3	8 to 12	90s
Lat pulldown	3	8 to 12	90s
Leg extension	3	10 to 15	60s
Leg curl	3	10 to 15	60s
Split squat (bodyweight or dumbbell)	2	8 to 12 each leg	60s
Triceps pushdown	2	10 to 15	60s

Session B

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest
Seated or low row	3	8 to 12	90s
Chest press (2 second pause at chest)	3	8 to 10	90s
Leg curl	3	10 to 15	60s
Leg extension	3	10 to 15	60s
Pec deck	2	12 to 15	60s
Preacher curl	2	10 to 15	60s

Across a three-session week, that works out at roughly 11 to 13 hard sets for the chest, 9 for the back, 9 for each half of the thigh and 2 to 4 each for biceps and triceps (which also get worked by every press and pull). That's a sensible starting dose. Plenty of people never need more than this to keep getting stronger for a year or two.

The upper/lower multi gym split (4 days a week)

Run it Monday upper, Tuesday lower, Thursday upper, Friday lower, or any pattern that avoids three days in a row. Upper days carry most of the stack work because the upper body is where a multi gym has the most stations.

Upper (days 1 and 3)

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest
Chest press	4	6 to 10	2 min
Lat pulldown	4	8 to 12	2 min
Seated or low row	3	10 to 12	90s
Pec deck	3	12 to 15	60s
Preacher curl	3	10 to 12	60s
Triceps pushdown	3	10 to 15	60s

Lower (days 2 and 4)

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest
Leg extension	4	10 to 15	90s
Leg curl	4	10 to 15	90s
Split squat (dumbbell)	3	8 to 12 each leg	90s
Single-leg extension	2	12 to 15 each leg	60s
Cable crunch from the high pulley	3	12 to 15	60s

That gives 14 sets a week for the chest, 14 for the back and around 18 for the quads. More sets do buy more muscle, up to a point. In an 8-week trial, trained men doing 1, 3 or 5 sets per exercise three times a week all gained similar strength, but the higher-volume groups grew more muscle in the arms and thighs. The useful flip side: the one-set group still got stronger on about 13 minutes a session, so a short workout on a busy day isn't wasted.

Warm-up

Five minutes is enough. Walk, row or cycle easily to get warm, then do 10 arm circles and 10 leg swings each way. On the first station of the day, do one set of 10 at about half your working weight and one set of 5 at about three-quarters, then start your working sets. Give the pec deck its own light set even after chest press, because the stretched position loads the front of the shoulder differently.

How to pick a weight on a selectorised stack

The pin makes choosing a weight easy, and it also makes it easy to guess badly. On your first week, start every station two or three plates lighter than you think, do 10 reps and judge how many more you could have managed. If the answer is more than four, move the pin down for the next set. You're aiming for a load where the last rep or two of each set is slow but still clean.

Ignore the kilos printed on the plates when comparing stations. Many home machines route the lat pulldown or leg curl through extra pulleys, so 40kg on one station can feel nothing like 40kg on another, and nothing like the same number on a different brand. Log the pin position for each exercise instead. A notebook or a phone note with "pulldown: plate 7, 3x10" is all the tracking you need.

Use double progression. Stay on one plate until you can hit the top of the rep range on every set with good form, then move the pin down one plate and drop back to the bottom of the range. The ACSM suggests a 2 to 10% load increase once you can beat your target by one or two reps; one plate on a home stack is often more than that on lighter stations like the pec deck, which is why the rep range does most of the progressing there.

Progressing when the stack runs out

Every home multi gym has a ceiling, and lat pulldowns and leg extensions usually hit it first. A 72kg stack such as the one on the Strongway 72kg dual pulley multi gym will last most people years on curls and pushdowns, but not necessarily on pulldowns. You can't bolt plates onto a selectorised stack, so make the weight you have harder.

Slow the lowering. Take 3 to 4 seconds on the way down and 1 second up. Time under tension rises sharply, and the top plate that felt easy for 15 reps becomes a fight at 10.

Pause at the hardest point. Hold for 2 seconds with the bar at your chest on the pulldown, with your legs straight on the leg extension, or with the handles together on the pec deck. Pauses kill momentum, which is how most people sneak extra reps out of a maxed stack.

Go single-arm or single-leg. Leg extension and leg curl almost always work one leg at a time, which effectively doubles the load per leg. On a pulldown or row with a cable and a D handle, single-arm work does the same for your lats. Fixed chest press arms that move together can't be split, so use the other methods there.

Take more reps closer to failure. Sets of 15 to 25 taken to within a rep of failure are a legitimate way to build muscle. A meta-analysis of studies taking both light and heavy sets to failure found no significant difference in muscle fibre growth between low and high loads, though the authors note the confidence intervals were wide. High-rep work won't improve your one-rep max as much as heavy work, but if your goal is muscle and fitness, it doesn't need to.

Add a set. If the plan has you at 3 sets, go to 4 before reaching for anything cleverer.

Use one method at a time on a given exercise and run it until it stops working before stacking a second one on top.

How the stations fit together

Order matters a little. The big multi-joint stations (chest press, pulldown, row) go first in each session while you're fresh, and isolation work (pec deck, curls, pushdowns) comes last. That follows the ACSM's general advice to put large-muscle and multi-joint exercises before small-muscle and single-joint ones.

On a single-stack machine, pair stations that don't share a seat or cable when you can. Chest press then leg curl, for example, means you rest your chest while your hamstrings work, with only a pin change in between. If two people share the machine, stick to the plan order and alternate whole sets.

For technique on each station, our step-by-step guides cover the lat pulldown, leg extension, pec deck and triceps pushdown in detail.

Common mistakes

Letting the plates crash. If the stack clanks between reps, you've dropped tension and probably a good chunk of the set's benefit. Lower the weight until the top plate kisses the stack and goes again.

Wrong seat height. Leg extension pads should sit just above your ankles with your knees lined up with the pivot. Chest press handles should land at mid-chest. A seat out by a couple of holes shifts load onto joints that weren't asked to carry it.

Leaning back on the pulldown. A slight lean is fine. A big swing turns it into a row and lets you move a pin position you haven't earned.

Only training what the machine does well. Skipping split squats because they aren't on the frame leaves your glutes and hips undertrained, which is the gap the NHS guidance specifically names.

Changing the plan every fortnight. Run one programme for at least 8 to 12 weeks, logging the pin positions, before you judge it. Progress on a stack is easy to measure, so measure it.

Recommended reads

1. Best multi gym UK: home multi gyms compared
2. Strongway 72kg dual pulley multi gym review
3. Marcy MWM988 multi gym review
4. Chest press machine: how to do it and muscles worked
5. Leg curl: how to do it and muscles worked
6. Seated cable row: form and muscles worked
7. Preacher curl: how to do it properly
8. Home gym equipment reviews and guides