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To get bigger muscles you need to work out at a high intensity. It’s no good just drifting in and out of the gym without breaking a sweat. But before you reach for an extra armful of weight plates, you should know there are other ways to make your session more challenging.

One of these is plyometric training. This might sound technical, but it simply means extending a muscle across its full range of motion before explosively contracting it again. This targets the fast-twitch fibres and exhausts them faster than your usual workout without using more weight. This also pushes up your heart rate, which burns extra calories and releases more muscle-building nutrients and hormones into your bloodstream.

Warm up with ten minutes of cardio. With each rep, make sure you lower the weight as far as is comfortable to stretch the muscle before explosively contracting it again. The three workouts here target the upper body, lower body and core. Rest for one minute between sets and three minutes between each exercise. Leave two to three days between workouts and after four weeks you’ll have the healthy and muscular body you want.