One, two, miss a few, 99, 100. Our preferred approach to weight training isn’t the ideal way to hit our hench goals, so we’ve roped in a professional to help us, and you, out.

With 77 England caps and two British and Irish Lions appearances to his name, James Haskell was a formidable figure on the rugby field. Not just because of his experience, but because of his size. At 6’4” he was never the tallest man on the pitch and, despite his near-19-stone frame, neither was he the heaviest. But he was always one of the most muscular.

The man’s a giant. And apps play a key part of all areas of his training.

“I use Interval Timer a lot” Haskell explains. “I find it really useful and use it to dictate my training sessions.”

Why is this app in particular so helpful for the former rugby star? Well, instead of being restricted to pre-programmed workouts, it lets him control his fitness regime on his own terms, and allocate set time to exercises of his choosing.

“I try to do a lot of circuit-based sessions because it mimics what you have to do in rugby of low intensity, high intensity, low intensity, high intensity and almost contact conditioning,” Haskell says.

“Interval Timer is great because you can set your own high and low intensity parameters, you can set the rest and put your circuits together. I’ll put in circuits where I’m training for 30 seconds, have 10 seconds transition time to another exercise, then work for 30 seconds again. I’ll do five sets of exercises then rest for two minutes.”

“In terms of typical workout length, I’m probably looking at 35 to 40 minutes quite easily, and the app’s always tracking what I'm doing.”

Despite giving him total control over his workout routines, it’s Interval Timer’s unobtrusive nature that ultimately appeals to the formidable flanker-turned-budding-DJ.

“The app lets you work out your own action times and rest times and lets you play music throughout, which is good for me. If I’ve got my AirPods in, it will sound a siren over the music so that I know that it’s time to rest – which is cool.”

“I know when to rest and when to go without having to look at my phone or watch.”

Looking at Haskell you’d think he lived on a weights bench, but his Interval Timer-enhanced workouts are actually far more varied. “A lot of what I do is body-weight based,” he explains. “That builds a good level of strength and keeps you mobile. If you don’t have a lot of equipment, you can go purely body-weight based.”

And that’s exactly what he advised we try the next time we use the app.

Want more training tips? James Haskell's eight week training guide, Perfect Fit: The Winning Formula is available now.