The Greatest Training Program of All Time!

On Programming Design and Discovering the Best Program for You

     Ha!  I probably caught you with that catchy little title and got you to click on what you’re now reading.  Call it a little “bait and switch” or a handy bit of marketing to get you to read my blog, but I’m also quite sincere.  I want to discuss the single greatest training program/workout routine ever, so what is it, you ask?

     There are essentially two truisms in strength training and muscle building that will always be true.  Sure, we make discoveries all of the time in the realm of science.  What was “true” one minute can be washed away the next in a new moment of discovery.  But when it comes to training, here are the two truths:

1. The very best program on the planet is the one that works for you.

2. The best program is the one that you’re not doing.

     Many lifters simply follow the routine of the latest hot-shot, celebrity bodybuilder, strength athlete, or, well, actual celebrity—like whatever the hell Chris Pratt did to go from a sloppy kinda fat “dad bod” in Parks and Recreation to the super-jacked Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy.  That approach may work if whatever workout that whoever-the-heck-it-is did actually works for you.  Most likely, though, it won’t.  To get good results, you must find the workout that fits you with your body type, your goals, your age, and your lifestyle.  Once you find that program, however, it will probably only work for 6 to 8 weeks or so when it comes to “serious” training routines or for 12-16 weeks if it’s a kinder, gentler and more “progressive” system of training—such as the Russian routines that last around 16 weeks that I outlined in my last article Bench Big the Russian Way.  Once the routine “runs its course,” you have to make changes, though that doesn’t mean you should completely overhaul the whole dang thing.  In fact, once you discover the style of training that works for you, it’s a matter of making small but significant changes every 8 to 16 weeks—though sometimes it is good to do something completely different if you’ve been hammering at the same kind of workouts for 6 months or longer—in order to keep your progress going and to prevent training ruts and progress plateaus.

     Bill Starr once wrote that the reason so many people have trouble applying truth #1 above is because it is such a basic concept—it’s just too simple and, unfortunately, most people don’t believe in their own ability to design a workable program.  Starr: “Hence, they turn to outside ‘experts’ without understanding their own needs and individual abilities.  The fact is, no one understands your body the way that you do, and you really are your own best coach.  No one else knows that certain pressing movements, no matter how light you go on them, still cause you severe pain for several days following a workout.  No one knows that you respond best to several short exercise bouts each week—that, although it goes against the grain of most conventional literature, you’ve found that when you take off two or three days between workouts, your lifts suffer.” *

     By the way, I think there are more lifters like the ones just described by Starr than most realize.  They’re the ones who respond best to short but frequent bouts of training using either an “easy strength” model of training or some kind of grease-the-groove approach.  If that’s you then those are the best programs of all time for, again, you.  How do you know whether that approach will work for you?  Usually, lifters stumble upon it.  They try high-volume workouts with lots of sets and reps and all sort of "intensity techniques" coupled with taking a lot of time off in between each session—the so-called “bro split” approach—but that doesn’t work.  Then they switch over to “HIT” style training, where they still train infrequently but couple it with heavy, brief, super “intense” workouts, taking each set to momentary muscular failure (and sometimes beyond it) but that doesn’t work, either.  But then they go the easy strength route—perhaps they read one of my essays here, or they stumble upon Pavel Tsatsouline’s programs, or they read about Dan John’s 40-Day Workout—and all of the sudden they are having the best workouts of their lives and making gains for the first time since those original “newbie” gains wore off.

     The opposite can also be true, however.  Maybe you get on a HFT program, increasing your workload by training each lift/muscle group more than 3 days weekly, only to find that not only does your strength go down but you soon feel as if you’re sick or coming down with a cold or something.  Now, the “feeling sick” part isn’t necessarily indicative of the fact that the program won’t work.  When I was powerlifting, if I started to come down with a cold shortly before an upcoming meet, I actually knew that I was on the right track.  But that’s another factor that you must discover for yourself.

     Way back in the 1960s, Starr worked for Bob Hoffman and trained at the famous York Barbell Club.  He said that outsiders thought Hoffman designed all of their workouts and training programs—some of the best lifters in the world trained at York—but that nothing could be further from the truth.  “In the spring, when the athletes were getting ready for the Nationals, there  would often be two dozen national champions and at least three world-record holders in the York gym, and no two athletes trained alike. In this age in which programs are designed by computers some people might consider that rather improbable, but it’s a fact. Sure, most did many of the same exercises—presses, snatches, cleans and squats—but everyone had his own workout plan. Some did lots of sets and reps and trained for hours at a stretch. Russ Knipp, Kenny Moore and Ernie Pickett put in long sessions. Others, like Bill March and Bob Bednarski would be in and out of the gym in less than an hour.  Some did lots of auxiliary work—high pulls, hang cleans, good mornings, shrugs, inclines, dips and push presses—but some, such as Joe Puleo and Tony Garcy concentrated on the three competitive lifts and some squats. The fundamental reason they all made it to the top was that they understood how their bodies responded to exercises and didn’t try to go against the grain.”

     Read Starr’s words another couple times if you have to.  Let it sink in.  It’s important to learn.  You need to discover whether you need little other than the basic movements or if you need the basics along with a host of other assistance movements.  Perhaps you’re somewhere in between the two.  When I used to coach a lot of powerlifters, I had a few lifters—such as my training partner Ox—who only made progress by just doing the 3 powerlifts and nothing else.  These guys also tended to be “low volume lifters” who, though they thrived on fairly frequent training, kept their work sets per lift at each workout to no more than 3 to 5.  Others, such as myself, only made considerable gains once we pushed up our volume quite high.  I needed 8 to 10 sets at each workout for each of my lifts to continue with my strength goals.  Some were low-volume lifters but they did need some assistance work, though not much, to continue making progress.  And, yep, some needed a lot of assistance work, though not so much work on the actual powerlifts, for continued gains.  Although I thrived on high-set workouts for each of my lifts, I didn’t need a lot of assistance work.  I’d do 8 to 10 sets of 3 to 5 reps on my bench presses, then maybe 2 to 3 sets of some sort of triceps movement, front delt exercise, and a lat movement.  The total number of sets for the workout, assistance work included, was usually between 15 and 20.  Again, and this can’t be stressed enough, that is what worked for me, and you must find what will work for you.

     “That basic lesson is one of the hardest things to learn in strength training, partly because we’re flooded with so much information,” Starr continued. “While there seems to be a publication available for every conceivable situation, not so many years ago the information superhighway was rather sparsely traveled, which meant that anyone aspiring to a higher level of strength had to figure out what to do on his or her own. The champs didn’t copy someone else’s routine, but, rather, devised ones of their own—routines that fit their particular needs.

     “That’s exactly what modern strength athletes must do as well. Think of the article you read as an outline, a list of suggestions, and not an edict carved in stone. Modify the sets-and-reps-and-rest-days formula to fit your specific needs and get rid of those recommended exercises that you know from experience will bring you more grief than pleasure. Strength training should be an enjoyable activity. If you find yourself dreading going to the gym on certain days it might be wise to sit down and revamp your program.”

     I dread to think, if Starr was still alive, what he would think about today’s “information superhighway” where we’re inundated with a constant stream of videos with training advice on more platforms than I’m even aware of.  I sometimes get on YouTube, but that is the complete and total extent of my knowledge of what is on the internet when it comes to video training information and it is too damn much.  But Starr’s words are still just as true.  Probably more true because of the plethora of (dis?) information.  When you watch a training video or, yes, even read one of my articles here on the blog or elsewhere, think of it as an outline, a list of suggestions (though I do give reasonably good suggestions in my humble opinion), but not as an edict carved in stone by the muscle-building, strength-gaining gods.  I must add this, however, regarding Starr’s advice:  When he writes that you should “get rid of those recommended exercises that… bring you more grief than pleasure” make sure that you are not getting rid of them just because you don’t like them.  Too many lifters avoid doing the very exercises that they need to do because they’re not good at them.  They stick with the lifts that they’re strong at and avoid the lifts that they’re weak at, but those “weak” lifts are the exact ones that they need to do in order to continue making progress.  For instance, there are a lot of strong bench pressers at many local gyms.  Perhaps they can bench press three or even four “wheels” (315 to 405 pounds).  But they can only military press a paltry 200 pounds or so.  Well, in that case, those lifters would have even bigger benches if they’d get that overhead press strength up.  They don’t do those movements because they suck at them—and they probably don’t want to feel embarrassed by not lifting that much in front of their fellow gym members.  Leave your ego at the gym door when you enter and work on the lifts that you’re weak on—those are usually the ones holding back your progress.

     Since Starr has been my inspiration throughout this essay—he’s often lingering in the background of a lot of my articles even when I never mention him—we’ll let him have the final words.  “Don’t get caught up in the notion that there’s only one way to achieve results in the weight room.  There are as many productive methods as there are creative minds.”

     If you want more of Starr’s training wisdom, get your hands on a copy of my book The Strongest Shall Always Survive: Lifting Lessons from an Iron Legend.  It lays out all the details you need to know about how to use Starr’s 5x5 method and his heavy-light-medium system of training.  Click HERE for details on it and my other books.

     Got comments or questions?  Leave them in the “comments” section below or send me an email if you’d like a more private, personal conversation.

*From the Bill Starr article “You are an Individual” as re-printed at that wonderful oddity of a blog entitled The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.