How’s the cycling going? If you’re new to our fitness challenge, this September we’ve been hopping on our bikes (indoors or out) for some cycling workouts. If you’re having fun and want to take it to the next level, here are some beginner training plans to try.

Any sport that’s physically tough is also mentally tough. Seven miles into your 16km long run, part of your brain will try to talk you into quitting. The only way to finish that run is to have a good answer for why and how to keep going. It’s the same when you need to add weight to the bar for your last set of heavy deadlifts, or keep pushing yourself to do the rest of the burpees in your Crossfit WOD. What we say to ourselves matters.

How much weight do you need to lift to get stronger? A new study suggests it isn’t as much as you think — but more is still better when it comes to muscle size.

Welcome back! The final instalment in our running challenge is the long slow distance run. (If you see “LSD” on a fellow runner’s calendar, they are not talking about psychedelic drugs. Probably.)

Who doesn’t love running? OK, maybe a lot of us. (Personally, I hate running while I’m doing it, but I feel amazing afterward.) We ran together last September, and now it’s time to lace back up.

If you’re anything like me, sometimes you get to the gym and the sheer act of getting there is triumph enough. The workout becomes almost irrelevant. By virtue of getting up off the couch and taking 'massive' action, you’re already in credit.

But other times, you’re in an altogether different headspace and you want to train. I mean, properly train. Here are five savage workouts that will push you to your limits and beyond - both physically and mentally.

We all hit a slump near the beginning of a fitness program. Not at the very start, when we’re excited to get going — more like a few weeks in. It may take six weeks to notice more muscle or better endurance, but how do you get through that time without losing hope?

Our guest this week is Outside magazine columnist Alex Hutchinson, author of Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. We discuss how endurance is a skill that involves drive and belief just as much as muscle - and how we all have the potential to go farther, push harder and achieve more.

Actors go through gruelling workouts to get prepared for blockbuster movie roles. While you may not need to bulk up for a fight with Thanos, you can follow along with the type of routine Benedict Cumberbatch used to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

You don't need a gym or even a running track to build your cardio fitness. Just a few flights of stairs can do the trick, if you have a good plan to work from. These routines from Fallout Fitness fit the bill.