The first weeks will feel easy. But the weight will increase fast. Your goal is to add weight every workout for as long as you can. But most people are surprised by how long they can add weight each workout with such a simple program. Your results depend on your age, gender, weight, technique, nutrition, sleep, experience, consistency, effort, etc. Many people have doubled their Squat to lb, gained 24lb and lost 12lb in a year on this program.
But these results are atypical for older lifters or females with less testosterone. The magnitude of the gains and time it takes varies. Your focus should therefore be to increase the weight until you reach these minimum targets. This triggers your body to gain strength and muscle to lift heavier the next workout.
Every exercise works several muscles. Together, these compound exercises work your whole body. This is what makes this program so time-efficient — you can train every single muscle by doing only three exercises per workout. They actually grow better with compound exercises because you can lift heavier weights. This triggers more growth.
This is why more strength is more muscle. Your muscles must grow bigger to lift the heavier weights. The intensity is higher on compound exercises because you can use heavier weights. The compound exercises work your whole body. This creates a balanced body development. You will build your body. You will build muscle. A lot of muscle. The key is to increase your strength. According to the legend, Milo from Croton trained for the Olympics by carrying a calf each day.
The calf grew bigger which increased the weight he carried. This triggered his body to gain strength and muscle. It turned him into the best wrestler of his time.
Milo won the Olympic Games 6x. He started light. He added weight slowly. He added weight every workout. He lifted a heavy object that worked his whole body. He lifted it frequently.
He balanced it himself. His program was simple. But it was hard work. And it was effective. But it works the same way. It will be obvious that this program is far more effective than the one muscle a day high rep isolation split routines so many people still waste time and effort on in Watch both videos and listen to me answering common questions.
The American lifters were floored and soon started to Squat too. Weightlifting coach Mark Berry gained 50lb body-weight by Squatting. By the late s he was telling everyone to Squat in his magazine Strength. He could Squat lb, Bench lb and Deadlift lb. He was a competitive olympic lifter and powerlifter before turning bodybuilder. They might have met…. In he popularized it in his book The Strongest Shall Survive. In my mentor told me to start a website about lifting.
The routine and its principles have been around long before I was born. Many training programs come and go. The next two exercises change based on whether you do workout A or B.
The workouts…. Do one workout per day. Be patient or increase the weight. Alternate workout A and B every time you train. Start with workout A today, do workout B in two days, then do workout A again. Wait at least one day between two workouts. This gives your body time to recover, get stronger and build muscle to lift heavier next workout. Do three workouts a week. Try to train the same days and times each week.
This creates a habit that will increase your consistency. You could do four workouts a week. You still have that day off inbetween but progress will be slightly faster. Most people like having two days off in a row though.
And those who start with four usually switch to three later. So stick with three. Your training schedule will be more consistent. If you miss one or two workouts, continue where you left off.
Do that workout on Saturday. Again, use the app , they take care of all of this. Note that these three workouts a week are a full training program. It would hurt your recovery and prevent you to add weight each workout.
Do this program or the other — not both. Every workout starts with Squats. The other exercises alternate each workout. You do these five exercises because they let you lift the heaviest weight. You can Squat heavier than you can Front Squat. Every exercise lets you lift the heaviest weights to work your major muscle groups. Use a barbell for every exercise. You can lift the heaviest weight with a barbell. The barbell must move freely. You have to balance the weight yourself, not let a machine do it.
It also forces you into unnatural movements that can cause pain and injuries. The heaviest kettlebell is 48kg. Plus kettlebells go up by 4kg. Safety concerns usually makes people prefer the smith machine or dumbbells. Failing their weights could kill them. Your gym may not have a Power Rack or even a bar. Either go to a real gym or build a home gym. Substituting any exercise will make the program less effective.
There are no better exercises than these fives. The key is to use proper form by using a complete range of motion. A half Squat will not build legs like a proper Squat will — your muscles are only working half the movement. Read the guides so you do the exercises right.
Use the same range of motion on every rep, set and workout regardless of the weight. Keep it constant. Always start with Squats. Bench or Overhead Press next. This gives your legs and lower back rest before you need them again on Barbell Rows and Deadlifts. Your lower back and legs will be tired from Squats. You need them for Rows and Deadlifts. Starting with Deadlifts tires your lower back for Squats. Squats tire it for Deadlifts too. Sticking to the same exercise order every workouts also makes it easier to track improvements.
Not because you did this exercise first today and were more fresh. Your goal is to build it. Get used to it. Do five sets of five on one exercise before moving to the next one. Stay focused on one exercise instead of rushing from one to the other.
The Power Rack may not be free when you arrive in the gym. I encounter these situations all the time but never change the exercise order of my workout. Just ask how much time he has left. This is the best way to make friends in the gym. Again — do it. Warmup with light weights before your heavy worksets. Deadlifts use more muscles. The weight is heavier and each rep starts from a harder dead stop. Five sets also give you almost double the form practice than three sets.
The more you practice proper form, the more efficient you become. This increases how much you lift and decreases injuries. Rest as long as you need between sets to get five reps on your next set. Rest times matter because ATP is your primary energy source for lifting. Each set depletes your ATP stores. So resting longer between sets gives you more ATP for your next set. It helps you lift heavier. Short rest times make you sweat more and cause more pump. But they limit how heavy you can go by forcing you to lift with depleted ATP stores.
Rest longer so you can go heavy. The drawback of longer rest times is that it makes your workouts take longer. You can fix that by only resting longer when needed. Keep longer rest times for your hard work sets. My app has a built-in rest timer to guide you. It tells you how long to rest between work sets, warmup sets and exercises. It suggests different rest times if your last set was easy, hard, or if you missed reps. Download the app here.
Stay focused between sets. You can sit on a bench, but I like to stand. Review your form if you just taped yourself.
Look at your training history in my app. Maybe visualize yourself doing your next set with perfect form. Use the lifting tempo that lets you lift the heaviest weights with proper form. Lifting slow is no good because it wastes strength.
But lifting too fast makes it harder to control the bar and lift with proper form. You must be in control of the bar at all times. But as you gain experience you can start accelerating the bar on the way up. This recruits more muscle fibers and helps you lift heavier weights. Always lower the bar under control. Control it on the way down so you can maintain proper form.
The bar should go down faster than it moves up. And the bar path should be as close to vertical as possible. Lifting slow causes more pump and fatigue.
But it also limits how heavy you can go. The goal on this program is to lift heavy. You can lift heavier when you lift fast. Your lighter warmup weights will move fast. The bar can sometimes move slowly on hard reps aka grinders. The point is that you put all your strength into the bar by trying to accelerate it. Take your time between reps.
Rest a second before doing the next rep so you can get tight and take a big breath. This will also give you some recovery. The general rule is to take a big breath before you do the rep, hold it while you do the rep, then exhale when you finished your rep. Your blood pressure will increase when you hold your breath like this. But your body will get used to this, especially if you start with the empty bar and work your way up slowly.
Your heart is a muscle, and it will get stronger like all your other muscles. Ignore people telling you to inhale on the way down or exhale on the up and similar bullshit. All of that does release pressure, but it also weakens your torso. It makes your lower back more prone to injury.
The point of taking a big breath and hold it, is to create pressure in your abdomen. This pressure increases support for your lower back. It makes your lower back safer and less likely to get injured. Exhaling during reps does the opposite. An advanced technique that works well on the Bench and Overhead Press is to press several reps with one breath. But you must be able to hold your breath for reps for this to work.
Rest days are crucial to get results on this program. The weight stresses your body every workout. This triggers it to get stronger and build muscle mass so it can better cope with the weight next workout. But your body needs time to recover, gain strength and add muscle. Workouts also cause fatigue. They increase your strength, fitness and endurance in the long-term. But in the short-term they tire your body, muscles and mind. You need rest days to start your next workout fresh.
Your legs will still be tired for Squats , shoulders still tired to press, back still tired to pull. Worse, you could still be sore from your last workout if it was hard. This will make you struggle to lift more weight. Your schedule may force you to workout two days in a row. Once in a while is fine but every week will hurt your progress.
This gives your body more recovery time. A walk or light jog is fine. A marathon is not. Avoid high intensity activities where you go all out. Your body is already used to it. Your legs might actually recover faster because this flushes blood and nutrients in your legs. If you never biked to work, probably a bad idea to start now. Increase the weight on every exercise where you did five reps on every set last workout.
So add weight to it. Ask them to get a pair or buy your own set. Put it in your gym bag and take it with you every time. Small plates take no space and weigh little. This shifts the center of gravity. This is asking for bad form, uneven loading of your body, and injury. Just get small plates. The weight is heavier as a result. The weight is lower which makes big jumps harder. This is too much, too soon. It makes you miss reps and plateau. Small plates delay plateaus. So get a pair of 1.
Then get fractional plates of 0. The lighter you are, the more you need this. The program progresses faster when using kg than lb. This is because the default increment of 2. This accelerates your progress when the empty bar feels too easy to start with.
But lower the increments before you struggle to get your reps. Remember avoiding plateaus is easier than needing to break them. But remember each workout makes you stronger. So stick to the progression and increase the weight anyway.
Focus on lifting with proper form meanwhile. This will prepare you for the heavy weights later. Starting too heavy will cause soreness. One skipped workout often turns into two skipped workouts. Now you have to restart and lost a week.
This ruins your motivation and usually ends the program. But this is irrelevant. Starting too heavy also causes plateaus.
Your starting weight must be light so you have room to easily add weight for several workouts. Of course lifting heavy is better. But lighter weights trigger your body to gain strength and muscle too. The other issue with starting too heavy is that it encourages bad form. Instead of practicing proper form with easy weight, you must lift it at all costs to get your reps.
This builds bad technique habits which will cause plateaus and injuries later when the weight gets even heavier. Starting heavy is trying to accelerate your progress.
You think it will make you stronger faster. Remember the fable of the rabbit losing the race to a turtle. You want to be like the turtle — starting light, adding weight steadily, and getting there faster by avoiding soreness and plateaus on the way. Your starting weights depend on your strength and experience.
Each rep must start from the floor. Use full diameter plates so the bar starts at your mid-shin on each rep. If the empty bar is too heavy to start with, then use a lighter bar. This is a common issue with females who have less upper-body strength. Add weight each workout. The program will get you stronger.
If the starting weight is too light, you can fix that by using bigger increments for a couple of workouts. Instead of adding only 2. Switch back to the recommended increments once the weights becomes more challenging. Understand you gain little by starting heavy since the weights increase fast anyway. What you lose is time spent working on proper form with lighter weights.
This turns into a huge advantage when the weights get heavy. So be conservative with your starting weights. If you make the mistake of starting too heavy, you should go to the gym anyway for your next workout, but lower the weights.
So it is important to rest accordingly in-between sets. By simply resting accordingly you are allowing for your body to be fully prepared to tackle each set. The time in-between allows you to breathe deeply, increasing your oxygen levels.
While your resting your body is working to create additional ATP in the muscles. ATP is the currency of energy in the body and is what is responsible for your muscles moving and contracting.
The more rest you have, the more ATP can be built, and the greater likelihood of success you have at completing every set. Before you start getting into the full swing of things with this program, you need to figure out your one rep max 1RM. The 1RM is used to determine what your starting weights should be for each exercise and how you will progress from workout to workout. If you have some experience with these exercises you can calculate your 1RM with the tool below.
For each exercise, input the amount of weight you have used and the number of reps you were able to do for one set. The tool then calculates what your estimated 1RM is. On all 5 exercises, you will start with just using an empty bar the barbell is 45 lbs. That may not sound too exciting but this is crucial. It will help you become much more confident with performing these exercises before the weight begins to increase to high. Making sure that you are not only safe but also will be able to confidently continue to increase the weight.
With how the program progresses from workout to workout you can go from squatting just the bar to squatting over lbs in just 3 months. There are three aspects of lifting that you want to focus on while you are doing your exercises. If you are able to do all three you will be able to move more weight, progress faster from workout to workout, and increase overall safety. The tempo of a rep speaks to the pacing of how you perform the concentric and eccentric parts of the movement. The tempo can be changed for different desired results.
One result you want is to not waste energy. To avoid this, you want to make sure you are not moving too slowly. Moving slowly increases the time under tension and load on your muscles, depleting you of your energy. The other result is to move with enough speed and acceleration that helps you build your explosiveness. Hitting that happy goldilocks middle ground allows you to get the best of both worlds. This may seem simple but not breathing properly can drain you of energy and hurt your form. Following the recommended breathing patterns will improve your cardiovascular fitness, enhance your performance, and improve your safety.
What you want to do is to take a deep inhale before each rep. Hold that breath and exhale as you complete the rep. Doing this during a rep will increase abdominal pressure. This supports your core and provides outward pressure towards your back.
Supporting your back can help prevent the development of aches and pains or potential injuries in movements like deadlifts or squats. When you get comfortable with this, you can begin holding your breath for several 2 to 3 reps at a time.
Doing this will keep your body tight throughout the duration and further enhance your cardiovascular fitness. The number one rule of lifting weights is that you should never sacrifice proper form for anything. Ensuring you are using proper form with each exercise takes time. Through repetition, you will begin to feel more comfortable and confident with the movement. What you can do to speed up this process and keep you moving properly is to record yourself lifting.
For example, if you are squatting, simply set up your phone to record you from the side. Then utilize high-quality videos and articles that cover how to properly perform these movements to see what you need to work on.
For a complete newbie, this may sound a bit vague but with the right resources and your video, seeing what is going wrong becomes pretty clear. Figuring out ways to improve these issues is as simple as a google search.
By this point, you know what the workout is, what lifts you have to do, what weights to use, and some of the important intricacies of this program.
Please check with the appropriate physician regarding health questions and concerns. Although we strive to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, no guarantee to that effect is made. A 5X5 workout, five sets of five repetitions of specific exercises, is a systematic strength training program designed to build muscle mass, burn fat and lose weight 1. Mehdi Hadim, author and creator of the website StrongLifts, outlines this workout in conjunction with a specific diet plan 1.
He stresses eight nutritional rules to help you be successful in a 5x5 workout program 1. By starting out your day with a good breakfast, you will be less hungry and less likely to snack throughout the day.
The StrongLifts diet suggests that you stay away from carbohydrates such as cereals for breakfast 1. Vegetable omelets with feta cheese and spices, cottage cheese with fruit and chopped nuts, or a fruit smoothie with whey are all good options for your breakfast. This diet recommends that you eat smaller meals every three hours. Going longer between meals may cause you to overeat to satisfy your hunger. Suggestions for snacks are nuts, carrots or fruit with low-fat yogurt.
All thinking and planning done for you. Stop doing math between sets. Focus more on lifting. So simple and easy to use. Daily strength tips in your mailbox. Thousands of Stronglifters have signed up for my daily strength tips over the years. They say it keeps them motivated and focused on lifting. If you like the website and app, you must try my daily strength tips. Just enter your email below to start receiving my daily strength tips in your mailbox today.
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