The trainee who is starting off their training for the first time ever, or after a significant period of time has elapsed since they previously trained, starts with a very basic program that trains three days per week.
This is also the case with older trainees over 60 and even 70, for this initial Beginner training.
You will want to set up on a schedule that gives you at least one day of rest between workouts, such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Older Trainees over 60, after a couple months, may then want to switch to a two day per week schedule, such as Monday and Thursday, as it becomes more difficult to recover between workouts.
This initial program consists of two basic workouts as follows:
Workout A Workout B
Barbell Squat Barbell Squat
Bench Press Overhead Press
Deadlift Deadlift
Sets and Reps
For the squat, bench press and overhead press, we want to perform three working sets of five reps.
For the deadlift, we will only want to do one working set of five reps.
Before we do any working sets, we want to warm up first.
I recommend getting the body warm by jogging in place and doing some jumping jacks for a couple minutes, followed by some light stretching. However, this should take no more than about 10 minutes.
With each of the lifting exercises, we then want to perform a few warm up sets with a focus on our form, before getting to the working sets.
Sample Workout – Bench Press
Set 1 – Empty Bar – 10 reps with focus on form
Set 2 – 100 pounds – 5 reps
Set 3 – 115 pounds – 3 reps
Set 4 – 135 pounds – 1 rep
Set 5 – 145 pounds – 1 rep
Set 6 – 155 pounds – 1 rep
Sets 7-9 – 175 pounds – 5 reps
For the warm up sets, you only rest for the time it takes to change the weight on the bar. For the three working sets, you will rest for about 2 to 3 minutes.
If you start out very conservatively with your weights, then 2 minutes is all you should need. As the weight gets heavier, you will find yourself needing more rest.
Sample Workout – Deadlift
Set 1 – 135 pounds – 5 reps
Set 2 – 155 pounds – 3 reps
Set 3 – 175 pounds – 1 rep
Set 4 – 195 pounds – 1 rep
Set 5 – 205 pounds – 1 rep
Set 6 – 225 pounds – 5 reps
Starting Weight
To determine your starting weight for each exercise, you want to take the time in your very first workout to find the starting weight for each exercise.
For example, if you are actually able to start out with the barbell on your back for the squat, then start with the empty bar and do five controlled reps.
If that was easy, then add ten pounds, and do five reps.
Continue with this process until you get to a point where the fifth rep was a modest struggle… the bar speed slowed down and you struggled to maintain your form.
Let’s say that weight was 100 pounds.
For your next workout, you will start at 80% of that weight (80 pounds) and do 3 sets of 5 reps.
If you are a trainee that lacks mobility, and have never trained, you may need to start by doing unweighted squats, and even unweighted box squats if you are unable to go to full depth.
There are alternatives for each of these four main lifts for any trainee who is unable to perform them comfortably with the unweighted barbell.
Adding Weight
In the first week or two, you may be able to add 10 pounds to the squat and deadlift with each workout. This assumes you start out with conservative weights.
After that, you will add 5 pounds to the bar, and no more (if you are a trainee over 60, or a female trainee who is quite petite, you may only be able to add 2 or 3 pounds to the bench press and overhead press, and that is perfectly fine).
Your body will be able to adapt to the new weight fairly easily in the initial phases, provided you start out at a conservative weight.
Off Days
This program is for people interested in developing significant strength in the near term.
With that in mind, on the days in between strength training workouts, “active rest” is what is generally prescribed.
Therefore, while you are focused on building strength, just work on your golf game, do some yard work, or walk.
If you are significantly overweight, then you will definitely want to pay attention to diet and consider adding some cardio exercise on your off days.
However, it is important that you keep higher intensity cardio exercise to a maximum of 30 minutes. If you go much beyond that, your body will start to burn muscle tissue to produce energy.
Final Thoughts
This program is very basic, and after about a month or two, you will need to make some adjustments. As the weights get heavier, it becomes more difficult to recover from the workouts, and/or add weight to the bar.
These adjustments get covered in my newsletter from time to time and will be addressed in future articles.
Ultimately, you can ride this basic program for a solid four to six months and gain substantial strength, assuming you don’t miss many workouts.
From there, you can modify your training to maintain your new strength gains, or proceed to more complex training if you desire to increase your strength more.
