As a financial planner, how much time do you spend talking to your clients about the future? 

Alright, you might have to make some space to tell them about last month’s portfolio performance, or how the latest news cycle of tariffs and wars and AI dystopia is going to affect them today. 

That aside: the future, that’s your game. You’re a professional horizon-scanner. You, my friend, are in the tomorrows business.

Yet the uncomfortable truth for financial advisers like you is this: the thing that will have the greatest impact on your clients’ future isn’t their money but their health.

It doesn’t matter how rich your client is, how attractive their spouse, how precocious their kids, how extensive their vintage car collection. When they’re laid immovable in a hospital bed, they can’t enjoy any of it.

Diligent saving and investing is important; of course it is. But life’s real compound interest is looking after yourself – making a few small changes and carrying out a handful of positive behaviours on repeat, so that later down the line you’re in an unrecognisably stronger position. 

So, here’s the message you should actually be pushing on your clients: do whatever it takes to put off having to make that phone call to Bupa for as long as you can.

Now, here’s a confronting question: to what extent do you follow that advice yourself? 

You owe it to your clients to be healthy

Exercise-wise, if you currently do nothing, clearly you need to do something. If you already do something, the next point to consider is whether it’s the right something.

Maybe you’re a runner – the occasional marathon or 10k, or just a trundling Parkrun every Saturday morning with pram in one hand and dog lead in the other. Or maybe you cycle, or do yoga, or sweat it out at a group class at your local leisure centre. 

All of those activities are great, essential even, and you should continue with them. They’ll keep you supple and ensure your heart stays in good working order. But cardiovascular health and flexibility count for nothing if you don’t have the strength to back them up. 

Research published in 2026, compiled from three decades-long studies, found that doing 90 minutes to two hours of weight training a week can greatly reduce the risk of an early death. Another found that both men and women start experiencing muscle loss (sarcopenia) from around age 35 onwards.

You’d like to carry on supporting your clients for years to come, right? And you want to be able to carry the shopping from the car, give your granddaughter a piggyback, get up off the sofa on your own?

Time to start weight training, then. First, a crucial decision.

Choosing the right type of exercise matters

When it comes to weight training, there are four main strength sports from which you could take inspiration. But in this writer’s opinion, three of them are trapdoors you don’t want to fall down.

Strongman (the gender-specific title an outdated holdover from the sport’s origins in vaudeville) is the least accessible. Unless your local health club is kitted out with concrete stones, wooden logs, and a Boeing 737 for you to pull around the car park with your teeth, probably skip this one altogether.

Olympic weightlifting is based on two movements, the snatch and the clean and jerk. Both are highly skilled and require exceptional mobility and explosive power – not very beginner-friendly.

Powerlifting competitors are judged on their ability to move the heaviest possible loads across three exercises: the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. These fundamental movements are actually worth investigating (more on that later), but a typical powerlifting training programme has strict rules to follow and calculations to make that even a finance wiz like you might baulk at.

Which leaves bodybuilding. Participants in this so-called physique sport build as much muscle as they can, and are ranked according to how ripped and jacked they’ve become as a result. No need for you to get oiled up and step onstage in your tiniest swimsuit, mind – what we’re interested in is how bodybuilders train.

Like treasured heirlooms, tips for packing on maximum beef, by any means, as efficiently as possible, have been passed down from one generation of bodybuilder to the next. And given bodybuilding’s enduring popularity, any commercial gym you set foot in today will have the basic machines and beginner-friendly equipment you need to get in a decent workout.

Even if your interest is piqued at this point, you may well be thinking – not unreasonably – how a busy professional like yourself is expected to find time to become a weightlifter overnight. As with so much in life, getting stronger in the gym isn’t about time but consistency.

In his smash-hit bestseller Atomic Habits, writer James Clear recounts the story of one of his readers who, fed up with being overweight, set himself the goal of going to the gym every day – but only for a maximum of five minutes. Once the five minutes were up, he’d get changed and go home. Eventually, he found the motivation to stay a little longer, then longer still, and within a year or two the weight was gone.

Consider that your cue to take the plunge. And if you’re not sure how to get started, never fear. Presenting…

The Yardstick Strength Training Programme for Financial Planners

Yep. Outlined below is an easy-to-follow plan for getting in the gym and keeping brittle bones and weakening limbs at bay.

The workouts should take you between 30 and 60 minutes to complete. They’re built around so-called “compound” movements which train several muscles at once, meaning you get the most bang for your buck and make the best use of your time on the gym floor.

Most of the exercises included are machine-based, because with machines you don’t have to worry about the infinite variables and intricacies that come with lifting free weights – you can just “plug and play”. (If you’re really nervous, hiring a personal trainer for one or two hour-long sessions to show you the ropes would be a good investment, but it’s definitely not essential.)

Whether you’re a beginner or not, you can absolutely get results from following this, provided you push yourself and don’t just go through the motions. And we already know you can do hard things; you’ve passed your Level 4 and lived through Consumer Duty…

Before you get stuck in, four key principles:

Workout split: Some training programmes have you focusing on only one or two muscle groups per session. Here, you’ll train all your main upper body muscles one workout and your lower body muscles the next. In an ideal world, you’d repeat this cycle twice – in other words, training four times a week. (Studies show the process of building and repairing muscle continues for up to 48 hours after exercise, then drops off.) But when real life inevitably gets in the way, even if you only manage to get into the gym twice in any given week, dividing up your workouts like this means you’ll still have trained your entire body.

Rep ranges and failure: In workout plans like this one, the range of repetitions provided for each exercise aren’t just arbitrary numbers to aim for, but a method for selecting the most appropriate weight for said exercise. Let’s say you’re asked to perform 3 sets of 8-10 reps. If you’re two sets in and dripping with sweat on rep 6, you’ve gone too heavy. If you’re nearing the end of set 3 and feel like you could continue forever, well, you know what you need to do next time. The goal is to reach “failure” – where you can’t perform another repetition with good form – within the designated range.

Pyramid sets: One highly effective way to organise your sets is to gradually increase the weight you use while simultaneously decreasing the reps you perform – going up one side of the pyramid and down the other. Using lighter weight to begin with gets your joints warmed up nicely, and the higher repetitions help to build fast-twitch muscle fibres. The later, heavier, low-rep sets activate your muscles’ slow-twitch fibres – the ones that build real strength.

Progressive overload: As they grow, your muscles will adapt to their new baseline of strength. So, to avoid hitting a plateau, you need to continually challenge yourself – to overload your muscles on a progressive basis. So, even if you only do so loosely, you should track your workouts. Many apps, like the free Jefit, are available to help with this, but you could just as easily use a notepad and pen. On each visit to the gym, try to beat your previous bests. You won’t manage it every time, but the chase is its own reward.

Okay. Sweatbands on. Headphones turned up full. Without further ado: your workout programme.

Upper body session

Sets marked with an asterisk (*) should be performed in pyramid fashion.

Lower body session

Sets marked with an asterisk (*) should be performed in pyramid fashion.

Whether you go into your new exercise regime with boundless enthusiasm or a begrudging sense of duty, one thing is certain: motivation will dip. When it does, there’s a well-worn analogy – amusingly relevant to your profession – that’s worth remembering:

Every workout is another deposit in the bank. It won’t make you a millionaire overnight, but when the time comes that you need to make a withdrawal, the riches will be there in abundance. 

There’s one aspect of health we haven’t discussed, though, and it might be the most significant of the lot:

Stress. Too much of it, and all the workouts in the world won’t save you. Yet eradicating just a little stress from your life really does make all the difference, as long as you do it the right way.

For less stress, share the load

For financial planners and advisers, few situations are as stressful as worrying where your next enquiry is coming from, or trying to find time to keep up with what’s happening on LinkedIn, or making sure your website doesn’t crash.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Call 0115 8965 300 or email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk and we’ll take marketing off your plate so you can concentrate on becoming the version of yourself you – and your clients – deserve. Plus, when we take the inevitable next step of dropping a Yardstick-branded activewear clothing range, you’ll be the first to know.