Size and Strength Simplicity

 

Simple, Easy-to-Follow Programs for Unleashing Size and Strength Gains

    While working on the next installment of my series on HFT yesterday, I received an email from a reader who was a little confused—perhaps more than a little confused would be more appropriate—about how he should set up his workout program.  And, as with a lot of questions that I get asked and are then turned into an essay or article, I thought it would be good to write an article about some easy and simple workout plans that are also quite productive—the same kind of workouts that I suggested to this young man.

     Periodically, I receive these sorts of emails from readers who are confused over some of my recommendations.  After all, I do write about various forms of training and lifting.  They are often different because, for one, different people respond well to different forms of training, and, two, different lifters have different goals.  Your goal(s), how you respond to training, your training history, your age, and your level of strength fitness (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) all determine the sort of workouts that you should utilize.

     Sometimes, however, we should all get “back to the basics” and return to some not complicated workouts.  What follows are some workout ideas that take all of the excess and fluff out of training.  These are simple and basic ideas, but they will also be highly effective if you are consistent.

An Easy Strength Heavy-Light-Medium Program

     For this first program, pick three exercises.  Select a squatting movement, a pressing movement, and a pull movement.  The pulling movement can be either a lower body pull—power cleans, for instance—or an upper body pull, such as chins.  Most folks should probably select a lower body pull unless you specifically need work on your upper body.  These three lifts will be the only movement you use for the program.

     I have selected squats, bench presses, and thick-bar deadlifts for this example.  I’m not usually fond of deadlifting frequently, but I make an exception with thick-bar deadlifts of various sorts, simply because it’s harder to overwork your lower back.  Your grip will give out long before your lower back becomes fatigued.  Other good exercise selections would be front squats, bottom-position squats, thick-bar deficit deadlifts (sumo or conventional), power cleans, power snatches, chins, barbell or dumbbell rows, barbell overhead presses, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses (do these with a thick bar to make them even harder), bottom-position bench presses, or weighted dips.

     You will train 3-days-per-week on this program.  Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays are the most popular days for training, simply because you get the weekends off, but any 3 non-consecutive days will do.

Day One - Heavy

• Squats: 3 sets of 5 reps.  Perform a couple to a few warm-up sets (the number of warm-ups depends on how strong you are), and then perform 3 sets of 5 reps with the same weight.  Try to select a weight where only the 3rd set of 5 is really tough.

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5.  Same methodology as the squats.

• Thick-bar deadlifts: 3 sets of 5 reps.  Same methodology as the above exercises.

Day Two - Light

• Squats: 1 or 2 sets of 5 reps.  Work up to a weight that is somewhere between 75% to 85% of the weight utilized on Day One.  Let’s say, on Day One, you performed one warm-up set with 135, another warm-up with 185, then did your 3 “work” sets with 225 pounds.  In that case, here you could do one warm-up set with 135, then perform 1 or 2 sets with 185 for 5 reps.

• Bench presses: 1 or 2 sets of 5 reps.  Same methodology as the squats.

• Thick-bar deadlifts: 1 or 2 sets of 5 reps.  Same methodology as the above two exercises.

Day Three - Medium

• Squats: 5 sets of 2 reps.  Okay, here is where it might seem a bit odd if you’re not familiar with Bill Starr’s version of heavy, light, and medium training, because this is sort of a “riff” on his method.  Even though you will end up training “heavier” here, your workload will be decidedly less than what was lifted on Day One.  On this day, work up over 5 progressively heavier sets of 2 reps until you reach a hard, but not max, set of 2 reps.  Using our hypothetical squats of 225 on Day One, here you might do a set of 2 with 135, a set of 2 with 185, a set of 2 with 215, a set of 2 with 235, and a set of 2 with 250.

• Bench presses: 5 sets of 2 reps.  Same methodology as the squats.

• Thick-bar deadlifts: 5 sets of 2 reps.  Yep, same methodology as the two above movements.

     Don’t add anything else to these workouts with the exception of maybe 1 set of some sort of relatively heavy abdominal exercise such as the ab wheel and 1 set of some sort of loaded carries.

A Heavy-Light-Heavy/Light-Heavy-Light Big 4 Program

     Speaking of loaded carries, for our 2nd program, you will incorporate them into each workout.  If you’re not familiar with what I call the Big 4, it involves, each and every week, doing these 4 things: Pick something heavy off the ground.  Squat something heavy.  Press something heavy overhead.  Drag or carry something heavy.  The premise is that, if you do those 4 things every week, whether they’re together in one workout or spread out over two or three workouts, you will achieve better results than leaving any of them out.  Anytime, for instance, a lifter comes to me and asks advice about gaining muscular bodyweight, the first thing I ask is whether or not he is doing the Big 4.  A lot of lifters, surprisingly, don’t do any of them, but occasionally I’ve had lifters that say they are doing two, or even three, of them.  I’ve never once, as far as I can recall, had a lifter come to me and say that he’s doing all four!  If he was, he probably would have never come to me for advice.  So here’s a program that takes advantage of the Big 4 in an easily programmable form.

     As with the first program, this one involves training just 3-days-per-week on non-consecutive days.  Also, as with the first program, and for the sake of simplicity, you’re going to use the same lifts throughout the program.  For this one, once again pick a squatting movement and a pulling movement.  Pick a pressing movement, as well, but make sure it’s an overhead movement.  Lastly, pick a loaded carry.  The only exercise that you will want to change will be the loaded carry movement, so pick two loaded carries to train.  For the example program below, I have selected squats, power cleans, barbell overhead presses, farmer’s walks and sled drags.

Day One - Heavy

• Squats: ramps of 5s then 3s, followed by 3 singles.  Here’s how the set/rep system will work for this 2nd program: Do a few progressively heavier sets of 5 reps.  Once you reach a heavy set of 5, start doing ramps with 3s.  Once you work up to a heavy set of 3 reps, stick with that weight for 3 more sets, but make them all singles.  Using our hypothetical squatter from the first program who did 225 for 3 sets of 5, his sets here might look like this: 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 235x3, 250x3, 250x1,1,1.  The beauty of this method is that, once you reach your heavy set of 3 reps—assuming it’s heavy enough—you may be a bit spent, but you will still find it relatively easy to get 3 singles with the same weight.  This will give you 6 solid reps with a heavy weight.  At each heavy workout, you will probably find your weights are naturally going up, but don’t force it.  You may end up sticking with the same weight at a couple of workouts, and that's fine.  Use this same method on your following pressing and pulling movements.

• Barbell overhead presses: ramps of 5s then 3s, followed by 3 singles.

• Power cleans: ramps of 5s then 3s, followed by 3 singles.

• Farmer Walks: 1 tough but not all-out set.  Pick up a pair of heavy dumbbells and walk with them until the set gets tough.  Push it, but make sure that you always have a little “in the tank,” so to speak, at the end of the walk.

Day Two - Light

• Squats: ramps of 5s.  On your light day, once again do ramps, but stop at a weight no heavier than what was used from your last set of 5 on Day One.  Even better, stop a little bit before you get to that weight.  Using our hypothetical squatter, once again, from Day One, here he might do 135x5, 185x5, and 215x5.  Use the same method on your pulling and pressing movement for this day.

• Barbell overhead presses: ramps of 5s.

• Power Cleans: ramps of 5s.

• Sled Drags: 1 tough but not all-out set.  The only really “hard” set of your entire light day should be this set of sled drags.

Day Three - Heavy

• Repeat the Day One workout.

     On the following week, you will do the light workout on Day One and Day Three, and you will only do the heavy workout on Day Two.  Alternate back and forth each week in this manner for however long you run the program.

     As with the first program, the only thing you might want to add is one set of a heavy abdominal exercise.

Some Final Thoughts

• Stick with each program for around 6 weeks, 8 weeks at the most. Most programs usually run their course by the 8-week mark.

• They would work well if run back-to-back.

• Please refrain from adding extra work.  It’s a common mistake, I know, since the programs look so simple.  They are, and that’s the point.  They also allow you to focus on 3 exercises for 6-8 weeks—and get really strong on those movements.

• These programs would be great for anyone looking to add mass so long as you are eating plenty.  THE keys for gaining mass are plenty of heavy leg and back work (these programs have that covered) coupled with a lot of mass-gaining calories and protein.  The mass-building doesn’t work without the caloric intake, so don’t neglect it.

• Conversely, these are also good strength-gaining programs even if you’re not trying to gain weight, but are simply looking to get stronger, leaner, and harder.  If this is you, you may want to follow a simple, easy-to-follow diet (such as intermittent fasting combined with keto; just a suggestion, that might not be what works for you) along with the simple, easy-to-follow program.  The advantage of this approach is that you just don’t have to think that much about either your training or your diet, which leaves your mind free to focus on other things.

• If you run one, or both, of the programs, and want to continue following the program(s), then simply pick three different exercises.  Just make sure they are always same but different.  You can replace barbell squats with front squats or bottom-position squats, but not leg presses, leg curls, or anything of a similar ilk.  Same thing goes for your pulling and pressing movements.

     Sometimes, it really is good to just get back to the basics with these sort of simple workouts.  Try one of them today, and you may be surprised with your strength and size-gaining results.