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Part of Strength training on GLP-1 medicines

Strength exercises at home while losing weight on a GLP-1 medicine

You can do useful strength work at home with a sturdy chair, a resistance band, a clear patch of floor and no gym membership. Public health guidance for adults is muscle-strengthening work for all the major muscle groups on at least 2 days a week, and a 2025 joint advisory from four US professional bodies aims higher for people taking these medicines, at strength training at least 3 times a week; across this topic the target is 2 to 3 days, 2 being the floor and 3 the aim. What decides whether it works is not the setting but whether the work keeps getting harder as you get stronger, which is what the weight loss trials did when lean mass was better protected. On a flat day, a single set of each exercise still counts, because activity can be broken into short pieces. Anything about the medicine itself, including its side effects, its dose and its timing, belongs with your prescriber or pharmacist rather than with this page.

Home training is not the compromise it sounds like

Muscle does not know whether the load came from a rack of dumbbells or from a kitchen chair. It responds to work that keeps getting harder. For the first several months of a weight loss program, a chair, a band and your own body weight supply enough of that for most people who are starting from little or no strength training.

The proof that this matters during weight loss comes from dieting trials rather than from gym research. A meta-analysis of 6 randomized trials in older adults with obesity found that adding resistance training to calorie restriction prevented 93.5 percent of the lean body mass loss seen with calorie restriction on its own, which worked out at 0.82 kg (1.8 lb) of lean mass kept per person (Sardeli 2018). Those programs trained 3 times a week for 12 to 24 weeks. A separate trial randomized 160 older adults with obesity to a weight loss diet plus aerobic exercise, resistance exercise or both for 6 months, and lean mass fell by 5 percent in the aerobic group, 2 percent in the resistance group and 3 percent in the combination group (Villareal 2017).

Here is the honest gap. Neither of those trials involved a GLP-1 medicine, and the first randomized trial designed to test resistance exercise and protein during semaglutide or tirzepatide treatment published only its protocol in 2026 and has not reported results yet (Alawadhi 2026). So the advice to lift while taking these drugs currently rests on dieting trials plus expert reasoning (Locatelli 2024). It is sensible advice, and it is not yet proven in this population. The sibling page on why muscle loss happens goes through the body composition findings themselves.

What you need, and what you can skip

The whole program on this page runs on five things:

  • A sturdy chair that will not slide, tip or fold, ideally with its back against a wall.
  • A resistance band, looked over for nicks or thin spots before every session.
  • A clear patch of floor with rugs and cables moved out of the way.
  • A folded towel or a mat for kneeling and for lying down.
  • Flat shoes that fit well and grip the floor, not socks, tights or bare feet.

Skip the machines, the apps that count reps for you and the supplements aisle. One adjustable dumbbell, or a full water bottle, or a small bag of rice held against the chest, becomes worth having later, once you can finish a set of squats without the last few reps feeling like anything.

How often should you train?

Public health guidance sets the floor. The WHO guidelines ask adults for muscle-strengthening activity at moderate or greater intensity, working all the major muscle groups, on 2 or more days a week (Bull 2020), and the CDC gives the same figure of at least 2 days covering legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms. The 2025 joint advisory on nutrition for GLP-1 therapy, issued by four US professional bodies, asks for a structured exercise program with strength training at least 3 times weekly plus at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week (Mozaffarian 2025).

Those numbers were set by expert panels rather than by trials in people taking these medicines, so read 2 days as the minimum worth doing and 3 as what the specialist advisory aims for. How to lay those sessions out across a week is covered on the strength plan 2 to 3 times a week page.

Exercises that can help

These cover legs, hips, chest, upper back and calves, using a chair, a band and the floor. Common starting points are 2 to 3 sets of 5 to 10 for sit to stand, 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 12 on each leg for the split squat, 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 for the glute bridge, 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 15 for incline push-ups, 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 15 for the resistance band row, and 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 15 for calf raises. Open each page for its own dose, precautions and stop signs. Your physio will adjust all of it for you.

Work through them in that order if you can. The first three load the legs and hips, which carry the most muscle and take the biggest hit when you lose weight quickly, and the last three cover the push and the pull, with calf raises to finish.

A few precautions belong with specific exercises here. If you have had a hip replacement, get the go-ahead from your surgeon or physio before you try sit to stand. Standing up from a low seat bends the hip past a right angle, and many surgeons ask you to avoid that for the first months after some operations. The glute bridge is done lying on your back. If you are pregnant and past the first three months, check with your physio before exercising flat on your back.

For the split squat, rest one hand on a wall or the back of a sturdy chair, and only go as low as you can control. For incline push-ups, set the chair with its back against a wall so it has nowhere to slide, and never use a folding chair or a stool that rocks. Before the band row, give the anchor a firm tug to be sure it will not slip, and after shoulder surgery follow your surgeon's or physio's plan rather than this list. After an Achilles tendon repair or ankle surgery, check with your physio before you start calf raises.

If you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every repetition and never hold your breath. With a heart condition or high blood pressure, check with your doctor before you start.

Stop any of these exercises for chest pain or pressure, dizziness or feeling faint, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or being far more out of breath than the effort should cause. If chest pain, pressure or tightness does not ease quickly when you rest, spreads to your arm, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or comes with sweating, feeling sick, feeling light-headed or being short of breath, call emergency services straight away, as this can be a heart attack. If it eases quickly and none of these happen, get medical advice the same day, and do not exercise again until you have been checked.

One more stop sign covers the leg exercises. Your calf or thigh becomes swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that feels different from normal muscle ache. Stop and get medical advice the same day, as this can be a blood clot. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.

Keep making it harder

Doing the same six exercises at the same numbers for six months is the commonest way a home program stops working. Muscle adapts to what you ask of it and then stops changing, so the reps or the difficulty has to creep upward.

A simple order works for almost everyone. Climb to the top of the rep range first, at the same difficulty, then add a set. After that, make the exercise itself harder: a lower chair for sit to stand, a deeper split squat, a lower surface for push-ups, a heavier band, one leg instead of two for calf raises. Only then does adding weight become the obvious next step. Our guide to exercise progression sets out the same idea in more detail.

Use the next morning as your check. Muscles that feel worked and settle by the following day mean the step was about right. Pain that is sharp during the exercise, or soreness that is still there two days later and getting in your way, means the step was too big. The pain monitoring model explains how physios use that judgment.

Training on a flat day

Some weeks on a weight loss program are harder than others, and the sessions are the first thing people drop. Decide in advance what your minimum session looks like, because that is what keeps the habit alive.

Any symptom you think is coming from the medicine is a separate matter, and it is not one this page will take on. Ring your prescriber or pharmacist about it rather than sitting with it, and never stop or change a prescribed medicine on your own.

On the training side, there is a practical point worth knowing. The CDC states that activity does not have to be done all at once, that it can be spread through the week in smaller chunks, and that some activity is better than none. So a session that gets cut to one set of each exercise is still a session. A week where the strength work disappears entirely is the thing to avoid, because that is when the muscle loss goes unopposed.

The food side of this

Training without enough to eat is half a plan, which is why the joint advisory puts nutrition priorities next to the exercise ones (Mozaffarian 2025). PocketPhysio writes no meal plans and sets no personal protein figures. The companion page on protein and exercise basics sets out what the published guidance says and names the people who can turn it into something personal.

When to see a physio (physical therapist)

Book an appointment before you start if you have a joint problem, a recent operation, a heart or lung condition, or a balance problem, because each of those changes which exercises are suitable and in what order they should arrive. A physio can also swap an exercise you cannot do for one that loads the same muscles differently, which is usually a better move than dropping it.

Go sooner if you have fallen in the past year, if you feel unsteady standing on one leg, or if anything on this page produces pain rather than effort. There is one more reason to get seen early. Low muscle strength is the leading sign of sarcopenia, the muscle failure that a European expert group defined around strength rather than size (Cruz-Jentoft 2019), and a baseline set of strength tests taken before you have lost much weight is worth far more than the same tests done a year later with nothing to compare them against.

Related exercise programs

See a doctor promptly if

  • Emergency: if chest pain, pressure or tightness does not ease quickly when you rest, spreads to your arm, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or comes with sweating, feeling sick, feeling light-headed or being short of breath, call emergency services straight away, as this can be a heart attack. If it eases quickly and none of these happen, get medical advice the same day, and do not exercise again until you have been checked.
  • Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away.
  • Emergency: you have had a fall or an injury and now have severe hip pain, or you cannot walk or put weight on the leg. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department. This can be a sign of a broken hip (hip fracture).
  • Emergency: sudden severe stomach pain together with pain spreading to your back, bloating that will not settle, a fast heartbeat, trouble breathing, or skin around your belly button, waist or upper outer thigh that looks blue or bruised (this can be harder to see on brown or black skin). Call emergency services or go to an emergency department, and do not drive yourself. If that sudden severe pain does not go away or keeps coming back, or comes with a high temperature or chills, without any of the signs above, get an urgent medical appointment or call your health service's urgent advice line the same day.
  • Same day: dizziness or feeling faint during or after exercise, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
  • Same day: you blacked out or fainted, even for a moment. Get medical advice the same day. Call emergency services instead if the person cannot be woken within 1 minute, has not fully recovered or has trouble speaking or moving, has chest pain or a pounding, fluttering or irregular heartbeat, fainted while exercising or lying down, is shaking or jerking, or was badly hurt.
  • Same day: shakiness, sweating, tingling lips, hunger, a pounding heartbeat, blurred vision, feeling weak or confusion during or after a session, if you take insulin or other diabetes medicines. These can be signs of low blood sugar, and the risk of it is higher when insulin or a sulfonylurea is taken alongside one of these medicines. Treat it the way your diabetes team has told you, then contact them or your prescriber the same day. If someone cannot be woken, cannot swallow safely or has a seizure, call emergency services.
  • Same day: you cannot keep fluids down, you are being sick or have diarrhea that will not settle, you are peeing less than usual or your pee is dark yellow and strong smelling, you feel unusually tired, you feel dizzy when you stand up, or you are breathing quickly or your heart is racing. Contact your prescriber or get medical advice the same day, as these can be signs of dehydration. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department if your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), your skin feels cold, you are breathing fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused, or you are unusually sleepy or hard to wake.
  • Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
  • Within a few days: jobs that used to be easy have become hard, such as standing up from a chair without your hands, climbing a flight of stairs or carrying shopping, or you feel clearly weaker than you did a month ago. See your doctor or a physio within a few days, and tell your prescriber as well.

Common questions

Can I keep muscle without going to a gym?

The trials that protected lean mass during weight loss used progressive resistance training, and none of them required a commercial gym. The pooled analysis of 6 trials in older adults with obesity used training 3 times a week for 12 to 24 weeks, and it prevented 93.5 percent of the lean mass loss that dieting alone caused (Sardeli 2018). What those programs had in common is that the load went up as people got stronger. A chair, a band and your body weight can supply that for a good while, and the limit usually arrives at the lower body first, which is when a dumbbell or a heavier band earns its place.

How many days a week should I do strength training on a GLP-1 medicine?

The WHO guidelines ask adults for muscle-strengthening activity at moderate or greater intensity, working all the major muscle groups, on 2 or more days a week (Bull 2020), and the CDC gives the same figure of at least 2 days. The 2025 joint advisory from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association and the Obesity Society goes further for people taking these medicines and suggests strength training at least 3 times weekly (Mozaffarian 2025). Neither figure was set by a trial run in people on these drugs, so treat 2 as the floor and 3 as the aim. Your physio will adjust this.

Should I train on days when I feel sick or have no energy?

No study has tested that question in people on these medicines, so there is no evidence-based answer. Whether a symptom is coming from the medicine is a question for your prescriber or pharmacist, and worth asking rather than guessing. For the training side, the CDC is clear that activity can be broken into smaller chunks and that some is better than none, so one set of each exercise on a poor day is a reasonable fallback. Three patterns mean no training at all that day, and each needs more than a rest. The first: if you cannot keep fluids down, you are being sick or have diarrhea that will not settle, you are peeing less than usual or your pee is dark yellow and strong smelling, you feel unusually tired, you feel dizzy when you stand up, or you are breathing quickly or your heart is racing. Contact your prescriber or get medical advice the same day, as these can be signs of dehydration. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department if your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), your skin feels cold, you are breathing fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused, or you are unusually sleepy or hard to wake. The second is sudden severe stomach pain together with pain spreading to your back, bloating that will not settle, a fast heartbeat, trouble breathing, or skin around your belly button, waist or upper outer thigh that looks blue or bruised (this can be harder to see on brown or black skin). Call emergency services or go to an emergency department, and do not drive yourself. If that sudden severe pain does not go away or keeps coming back, or comes with a high temperature or chills, without any of the signs above, get an urgent medical appointment or call your health service's urgent advice line the same day. The third applies if you take insulin or other diabetes medicines: shakiness, sweating, tingling lips, hunger, a pounding heartbeat, blurred vision, feeling weak or confusion during or after a session. These can be signs of low blood sugar, and the risk of it is higher when insulin or a sulfonylurea is taken alongside one of these medicines. Treat it the way your diabetes team has told you, then contact them or your prescriber the same day. If someone cannot be woken, cannot swallow safely or has a seizure, call emergency services.

Is walking enough to stop muscle loss?

Walking has its own benefits, but it is not a substitute for loading the muscle. In a trial of 160 older adults on a weight loss diet, lean mass fell by 5 percent in the aerobic exercise group, by 2 percent in the resistance exercise group and by 3 percent in the group doing both (Villareal 2017). That is the clearest signal available that the resistance part is doing the muscle work. Keep the walking and add the strength sessions to it rather than swapping one for the other.

What equipment do I actually need to start?

A chair that will not slide, a resistance band, a folded towel and flat shoes that grip. That covers every exercise on this page. A single dumbbell, a full water bottle or a small bag of rice becomes useful later, once the bodyweight versions stop feeling hard by the end of a set.

Does the medicine change how I should exercise?

This page gives no advice about any medicine, including how or when to take it, whether to change it, or how to handle its side effects. Those questions go to the prescriber or the pharmacist, who hold your history, your other medicines and your results. Never stop or change a prescribed medicine on your own. What this page does cover is the exercise side, which is the same progressive strength work used in weight loss trials without these drugs.

References

  1. Bull FC, Al-Ansari SS, Biddle S, et al. World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2020;54(24):1451-1462. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2020-102955
  2. World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128
  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adult Activity: An Overview. Last reviewed 20 December 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/guidelines/adults.html
  4. Sardeli AV, Komatsu TR, Mori MA, Gaspari AF, Chacon-Mikahil MPT. Resistance training prevents muscle loss induced by caloric restriction in obese elderly individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrients. 2018;10(4):423. doi:10.3390/nu10040423
  5. Villareal DT, Aguirre L, Gurney AB, et al. Aerobic or resistance exercise, or both, in dieting obese older adults. New England Journal of Medicine. 2017;376(20):1943-1955. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1616338
  6. Locatelli JC, Costa JG, Haynes A, Naylor LH, Fegan PG, Yeap BB, Green DJ. Incretin-based weight loss pharmacotherapy: can resistance exercise optimize changes in body composition? Diabetes Care. 2024;47(10):1718-1730. doi:10.2337/dci23-0100
  7. Mozaffarian D, Agarwal M, Aggarwal M, et al. Nutritional priorities to support GLP-1 therapy for obesity: a joint advisory from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association, and the Obesity Society. Obesity Pillars. 2025;15:100181. doi:10.1016/j.obpill.2025.100181
  8. Alawadhi AA, Alroudhan D, Alsaeed DJ, et al. LEAN mass Preservation with Resistance Exercise and Protein during semaglutide and tirzepatide therapy (LEAN-PREP study): a protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open. 2026;16(4):e116911. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2026-116911
  9. Cruz-Jentoft AJ, Bahat G, Bauer J, et al. Sarcopenia: revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age and Ageing. 2019;48(1):16-31. doi:10.1093/ageing/afy169
  10. NHS. Dehydration. Page last reviewed 1 May 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dehydration/
  11. NHS. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Page last reviewed 30 April 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
  12. NHS. Symptoms of a stroke. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/symptoms/
  13. NHS. Acute pancreatitis. Page last reviewed 11 March 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/acute-pancreatitis/
  14. NHS. Low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). Page last reviewed 3 August 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/low-blood-sugar-hypoglycaemia/
  15. NHS. Fainting. Page last reviewed 17 August 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/fainting/

Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-02.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.